A physicist explains ghosts in our digital reality

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by Magical Realist, Mar 31, 2015.

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  1. Bells Staff Member

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    Don't abide by the rules of the sub-forums you post in and you will find yourself moderated.

    That is what it comes down to.

    I don't particularly care what you personally feel about the rules set down on this website. If you wish to be special, then that isn't going to happen here.

    You don't get to pick which rule you wish to abide by. That isn't how it works.

    And no, in general this sub-forum is not given a pass on anything at all. I do not know where or why you believe this, but you are wrong and incorrect. If you cannot provide a substantial argument to support your case or your belief with evidence that supports your argument, then it will be disregarded - this includes posting contradictory "evidence" which directly contradicts what you are arguing and also includes dishonest forms of posting such as trying to lie about what is posted. If you persist in posting it, you will be moderated because it is in direct contravention of this sub-forum's rules and also of this site's rules. If you don't like it, then you are free to PM the owners of this site and explain to them why you think you should be treated differently to everyone else and have different standards applied to you.

    If you wish to protest about sub-forums having another set of rules, you are also free to PM the owners of this site and let them know of your displeasure and explain to them why rules they also wrote should be ignored.

    Good luck with that venture.

    The rules of this sub-forum and of the religion sub-forum were not written by Kitta. They existed prior to his becoming a moderator. He has updated them. I believe the one in the religion sub-forum were written by James or the previous owners of this site.

    And for a head's up, since it is clear you are deeply confused, this sub-forums rules provide a buffer to allow this sub-forum to exist, to make it easier to post here so that it isn't so strictly moderated like the science forums are.
     
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  3. Bells Staff Member

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    Not to mention supported with some form of evidence instead of the posting articles with no discussion points and responses of "you're wrong!" with nothing else to support it except personal belief.

    Yay!

    Thank you!
     
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I don't even read your longwinded flaming posts anymore. So save your typing for someone who cares.
     
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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    The so-called "scientific method", if it even existed, doesn't apply to non-scientific fields of knowledge. Science has no role in deciding what is real art, which schools of philosophy are valid, what ethics we adopt in our lives, the nature of spiritual experiences, the metaphysical nature of reality, or whose presidential candidate is best. It is not the arbiter of truth in these fields, which are more aimed towards experiential and intuitive reasoning instead of empirical evidence.


    Thanks James. You can start by telling Kittamaru to stop making up rules that effectively make a forum topic totally undiscussable. The secret to a lively discussion forum as you know is less moderation, not more.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2015
  8. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    What an excellent argument for eliminating the sub-fora that you mostly inhabit.
    I'm sure we could get along fine without them AND you.

    Perhaps you SHOULD read Bells' posts:
    So you are (as per usual) barking up the wrong tree.

    And less irrational bullshit - virtually your sole contribution.
    Although, given that you've declared that you "don't abide by bullshit rules made up by people other than James and Plasma Inferno" your complaint here is rather specious.
    If you're going to deliberately ignore that moderation then surely it might as well not exist.
     
  9. Bells Staff Member

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    One of the few reasons you are still here is because I am one of those someone's who cares.

    Then it is clear you do not understand what is meant by the scientific method.

    And if we were discussing real art, philosophy, you might have a point. But again, you are wrong..

    Though many see art and science as somewhat at odds, the fact is that they have long existed and developed collaboratively. This synergy was embodied in great thinkers like the legendary Leonardo Da Vinci and the renowned Chinese polymath Su Song. One of Carl Jung's mythological archetypes was the artist-scientist, which represents builders, inventors, and dreamers. Nobel laureates in the sciencesare seventeen times likelier than the average scientist to be a painter, twelve times as likely to be a poet, and four times as likely to be a musician.

    Camouflage for soldiers in the United States armed forces was invented by American painter Abbot Thayer. Earl Bakken based his pacemaker on a musical metronome. Japanese origami inspired medical stents and improvements to vehicle airbag technology. Steve Jobs described himself and his colleagues at Apple as artists.

    At TED 2002, Mae Jemison, a doctor, dancer, and the first African American woman in space, said, "The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin… or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity."

    As for spiritual experiences, you need science to be able to substantiate it, hence the title of this thread and hence why you are so desperate to try to find scientists to take what you believe seriously. Perhaps that is why you post on this site, instead of posting on sites dedicated solely to the paranormal.

    Personal belief in spirits is not a field.

    Then you clearly did not read the rules properly.

    If we were to abide by this site's rules, then it is more than likely that this sub-forum and the fringe section may not exist. The rules for the Fringe sub-sections existed long before you ever posted on this site.

    One thing they have always required is the ability to support one's argument and had the expectation that people would actually participate in discussions instead of posting large blocks of text copied from elsewhere with no discussion points. Nor were they ever under the rule of post whatever people want with no expectation that they would actually support their points with proof.

    There is nothing in those rules that prevents you from posting. And I think that is the main key you are missing here. Perhaps you should look at how you post and what you post and then compare them to this site's rules, be they this sub-forum's rules or the general rules and you might see where and why some of what you are posting do not pass muster.

    We have discussed this before and I have given you more than enough tips of how to make your posts conform to this site's rules.

    Actually, the secret to a lively discussion is to not post dishonest crap that has been disproven time and again and to not ignore all evidence to the contrary. In short, the secret to a lively discussion is to not be intellectually dishonest. And when you come to understand that, then you might find that you will require less moderation.
     
  10. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Fine, although we could have a discussion about which fields of knowledge are scientific and which are not. Critical thinking and analysis applies in all fields of knowledge I can think of.

    Certainly, science cannot decide questions that are more properly philosophical - 'What is art?' is a good one of those. Philosophy also includes ethics and metaphysics, of course. Much has been written on the intersection of science and ethics, but that's best left for a separate discussion.

    Science has much to say on the nature of spiritual experiences. For example, consider the intersection between such experiences and neurology. Science can decide which presidential candidate is best, provided we have a clear picture of what we mean by "best" in that context.
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    That's interesting seeing they were both posted by Kittamaru. Are you saying he copied these rules from someone else? Maybe he should give proper credit to that rule-maker.
     
  12. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    No points awarded for the attempted diversion.
    Maybe you could try subtle the next time you want to deflect attention away from your errors.
     
  13. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    One thing MR is not is subtle.

    In his defense, I do wish the powers that be would clarify the raison d'etre for this forum's existence. It's confusing that UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters exists - yet some expect the same standards to be enforced here as in, say, Physics & Math. This does not excuse any of the disingenuity that I have seen MR exhibit from time to time, but the underlying premise is questionable at best.

    PS - Hey there Dywyd, long time no talk!
     
  14. Bells Staff Member

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    Nice try and failure at diversion tactics.

    The rules were posted by Kitta because he updated the previous rules to today's forum climate. He built on what was already there. Just like the site's current rules are built on what already existed. Not that hard to understand, surely.

    We have always given this sub-forum a lot of leeway.

    There has always been a lot less in regards to the standards of support of one's argument here.

    The problem that is arising is one of intellectual dishonesty. For example, using articles that directly contradict each other and the argument the poster is trying to make and falsely claiming that both prove what he believes. Or the argument that demands that something exists because a) they believe it and b) someone saw it, so it must be true. Or the disregarding of whole articles they posted and only taking one line out of context or posting quotes from quote mining sites which completely take the article out of context and posting it here out of context, which is inherently dishonest and disingenuous. Or worse, using this section to push a dangerous anti-science ideology that can and does endanger the lives of people.

    It's not that we expect the same standards that are enforced in Physics and Maths. It is that we expect a standard that isn't dishonest and disingenuous. Normally, this should not be a problem. However, it is a problem, soooo, here we are.
     
  15. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Wrong. None of the rules for this forum existed prior to Kittamaru's own personal rule list. See, back THEN there was no fear of posts about sightings of ghosts, monsters and ufos as there is now. There was no obsession to insult and infract valued members for simply doing what the forum was created for:

    "UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters
    is a forum for discussion of UFO, Ghost and Monster sightings and related phenomena."

    All those bullshit rules are made up by Kittamaru, as a pathetic attempt to censor out the very posts this forum was created for. It's an exposure of the weakness of your position that you have to moderate posts you personally disagree with out of existence.

    LOL! You're the biggest liar in this forum, making up shit and then taking 10 pages of forum space to argue for it. And when you aren't lying you are making personal attacks on and flaming people you don't even know. Couple that with the numerous times Kittamaru has wrongly infracted me and locked my threads based on false accusations, and well, the picture becomes quite clear here. You have no arguments, or else you just don't know how to frame an argument. Perhaps abit of both. So like a common troll you make it personal. Perhaps your time would be better spent in a forum that doesn't upset you so much. Your objectivity as a moderator is definitely compromised here.
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2015
  16. Bells Staff Member

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    Are you aware that you are simply making my point for me?

    It is fair to say that I have been your biggest supporter, or the biggest supporter of keeping you on this site, despite your abhorrent manner of posting because for some reason or other, I believed there was something driving the manner in which you posted. In fact, I argued tooth and nail to prevent your permanent removal from this site. I felt you could have changed, seen the error of your ways and stopped being intellectually dishonest, so that people could have an honest debate about UFO's, ghosts, bigfoot and all the rest of it. Despite your personal abuse. Sadly, each time people try to discuss it, you resort to using discredited studies, you quote mine and post things out of context, lie, post contradictory articles that completely kill off the other.

    It's not the subject matter of bigfoot and ghosts that upset people, MR. It is how you are choosing to argue for said bigfoot and ghosts. Posting from hack sites, quote mining and posting articles out of context and at times outright lying is what upsets people. How many times have I had to explain this to you? It isn't the subject matter. It is how you post.

    Yazata has tried to provide a buffer, asking people to perhaps put the ball in your court. When we tried to do that, you either rebuffed us, insulted us, abused us, called us names, or completely ignored those requests and carried on, without pause.

    Put simply, no one is able to engage you in any discussion because you lose your proverbial shit and become abusive the very moment anyone dares to ask for further clarification or more evidence to prove your point, whereupon you tend to post things out of context or call people stupid for not believing as you believe. You then spam post quotes from articles, with zero input from you in those posts as though this is your arguing your point..

    So what should we do? What should I do? Should I give up and just let things be what they will be? Or should I keep pushing and try to excuse your dishonesty and abuse? You tell me, MR, which should I do? That ball remains in your court. Are you going to post properly? Or are you just going to keep going as you have been?
     
  17. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Don't talk down to me. I'm not some morally inferior person who needs your backroom defense. If people have a problem with what I've posted, they can come to me and confront me on it. I know how to defend myself. I don't need your lawyeresque bs to save me from being banned. Hell, I've been banned so many times for bullshit reasons it doesn't even phase me anymore. So save your pathetic sob story for someone who cares.

    You and your troll gang were never able to stop insulting me and falsely infracting me even after Yazata pointed it out to you. All you did was troll and lie and bitch about how I quoted articles to try to trap me into infractions in order to shut me up. It hasn't worked yet. Even now you dredge up issues resolved months ago as if these are crimes against humanity. You've lost all credibility with me Bells. You're a lying flamer who has lost all ability to be objective as a moderator. Suffice it that I end this ridiculously hostile and entirely over personalized tirade against me with Yazata's own much saner statements:

    Yazata: "What happens is that he commits the inexcusable crime of starting threads in the 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' forum about UFOs, ghosts and monsters. He's interested in those things. Then some of the dimmer people on the board seem to think that they can defeat the heresy by flaming it to oblivion. (Not unlike the inquisition except the flames here aren't literal.) So a torrent of insults are directed at MR, he fights back and everybody gets angry and extremely hostile. That's just stupid.

    All that people need to do to respond to MR is say that they aren't convinced. That subtly puts the ball back on his side of the court, because if he wants to convince people then he needs to give them more. But it doesn't trigger all the anger, hostility and defensiveness.

    Kittamaru: "What I am doing is not a red herring - rather, it is an example to show how ridiculous MRs strategy has been, and how defunct and improper, not to mention dishonest, it is. Turnabout is fair play and all that)"

    Yazata: "Calling somebody 'dishonest' is an insult. Many of your posts contain similar emotional provocations. That's bad rhetoric. You need to try to avoid doing that.

    I have to say that I have quite a bit of sympathy for MR. Part of that is because I've communicated with him almost daily for so many years. Since the 1990's, probably. I think of him as a friend, despite the fact that we disagree profoundly about many things. I don't care a whole lot whether people always agree with me, provided that they are humane, friendly and likeable.

    And part of it is because both of us are starting out with a similar intuition, so to speak. That's the intuition that reality is a lot stranger and more mysterious than most people think it is. We differ on where evidence of that mystery is to be found, but we both share the intuition that it exists. MR seeks out reports of anomalies like ufos, ghosts and cryptozoological animals. I find evidence of mystery in countless unsolved philosophical questions concerning things like time, logic, the nature of mathematics, the orderliness of physical reality and in being itself. (None of those things is truly understood.) That sense of pervasive omnipresent mystery is what motivated me to study philosophy at university level.

    That puts both of us on a collision course with Sciforums, which sadly has evolved into being something of a scientism-fundamentalism board. There's an implicit faith around here that everything is already figured out, if not in fact then at least potentially. If we don't already know the answer to a question (about any subject) we do already possess the means to answering it (the wonderful "Scientific Method") and we know what the answer will look like in principle. So "Science" expands into being a total and absolute philosophical world-view with a strong missionary thrust, an all-inclusive system of faith, knowledge and reality in which everything that is real supposedly finds its proper place and where nothing that doesn't fit can possibly be real.

    On the other hand, I'm inclined to think that reality probably contains a great deal that isn't captured by mankind's current understanding. Science is probably humanity's greatest intellectual achievement, but it's limited by our human condition and it's always a work in progress. It's possible that what we don't know far exceeds what we do know. And what we do currently know might start to look rather different in broader context. What people (or their descendants) might know 1,000 years from now, or in 100,000 years, might bear little resemblance to today's confident pieties, which might have come to look to our successors something like the confident assurance of the medievals look to us."
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2015
  18. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    Hey, I was right there with you on the anti-vaccination thread - that was dangerous.

    However, so long as this subforum even exists I fail to see how an enlightened being can expect any sort of science in it. I mean, really? If, as you say, we are going to give "this sub-forum a lot of leeway" than someone is going to push the boundaries of even those lax rules - MR just happens to be the somebody. I'm not privy to the back room discussions but I kind of have the impression that Kit would shut this show down if given his way. Which would be fine. But so long as it is going to stay live, perhaps it would make sense to write the rules to address the audience - no?

    IMHO, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with enforcing a policy that prohibits "Posting from hack sites, quote mining and posting articles out of context and at times outright lying". I can't see where anyone would object to that, even MR. Although you might have issues with defining "hack sites". Maybe defining the standards more clearly would lead to less abuse. Personally, I read these posts (particularly MR's) for the entertainment value, similar to reading the horoscope in a newspaper - I've mentioned this analogy before. Some members seem to get all worked up over this stuff though...

    Why not? Who (besides MR) would lose in that outcome?
     
  19. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Too many cranks and idiots are given free reign to spew their BS over the forum.

    I get that the mods are asked to treat these people with leniency to encourage participation in the forum, but perhaps that attitude is exactly why there is less participation than the site owner would like - because this forum is becoming a haven for crackpots and religious nutjobs, discouraging people who could actually contribute to scientitic discourse rather than rant about their pet delusions.
     
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  20. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Wrong.

    Maybe there wasn't any "fear", but rules regarding what could be posted - and the fact that simply making claims wasn't acceptable - certainly existed back then.

    Care to give examples of this?
    (I am, of course, decidedly NOT including you - or the majority of your crackpot ilk - in the category of "valued members").
     
  21. Bells Staff Member

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    And yet, when people point out the problem they have with what you post and how you post it, your response is to abuse and insult them.

    Do you think the people who are against you on this site just sprang up out of nowhere? You were repeatedly told what the problem was and how to address it and rectify it. You have consistently refused to do so.

    You aren't the only person being given warnings on this site. Most others learn and rectify how they are posting. You are not.

    You don't want me to speak up for you in the backroom? That's fine. I won't. But don't come to me with your complaints and don't PM me about any of it any more and then abuse me for the help I give you. It's that simple.

    Right..

    Like when you referred to people who post in the science forum as a "bunch of old science nerds" because they dared to question your beliefs in ghosts..? And then you went and trolled the science sub-section with an insulting thread?

    One of the reasons you were being given infractions was because you were posting large quotes without linking or referencing any of it. Worse yet, you were doing it from quote mining sites and posting things out of context.

    So I tried to explain to you how you should post to avoid those infractions and suggested you used the quotes to support your argument, not just post quotes with no further input from you, which you have a terrible habit of doing. The response was more personal insults.

    Yep, and when we tried to do as Yazata suggested, you became even more abusive..

    Look in the science threads as some examples of how that can be achieved.

    On the subject of UFO's, we know that scientists are bending over backwards trying to find new signs of life elsewhere in the universe. That is an ultimate goal, is it not?

    But look at how they are setting out to do so. Are they questioning people about strange lights they see in the sky? Are they discounting all contrary evidence that it is not a UFO?

    Or are they looking at all the mundane things certain things could be before raising the question in the first place?

    One of the biggest issues of this sub-section is that there are some who approach it as though it is a religion. They believe like they might believe in God. As a religious person may point to the Bible as proof of God's existence, some resort to 'they saw it with their eyes and I believe them' when someone describes seeing a bright light in the sky and then become convinced that the more mundane explanation that stems directly from life here on Earth is just a cover up or a conspiracy to silence the true believers.

    I absolutely agree with you.

    I have tried, on multiple occasions.

    And I do agree that some people are getting too worked up over these subject matters. And I think that religious aspect stems from both sides. Some are religiously inclined to believe and thus try to spread the word, just as there are some who are religiously opposed and feel that they must, at every opportunity, smack it down like a red headed step child to spread their truth.

    I think what is missing from the arguments MR posts is that it is a possibility.. Maybe.. Perhaps..

    So in the context of a UFO discussion, someone sees an unidentified flying object in the sky. For most people, it is a possibility, a maybe.. For MR, it is proof absolute that aliens exist.

    There is no middle ground here. Those who believe it is a UFO as per its definition automatically say it isn't aliens because aliens do not exist, while at the same time, they are posting about SETI in the science forums, MR is arguing from the standpoint of little green men in flying saucers while refusing to accept the position of 'maybe' and refusing to acknowledge that it could be something else entirely Earthly or even a hoax, despite all evidence showing it is more mundane.

    The magical question...

    See what I did there?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Wow. It's like every time you open your mouth--another lie. Quote where I said any ufo was absolute proof aliens exist. For all we know, they may be interdimensionals. See scientist Jacques Vallee...
     
  23. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    I.e. STILL aliens.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    (And even more of a bullsh*t idea).

    Funny how you feel you have to prepend the word "scientist" to Vallee's name while at the same time pointing to a hypothesis he's put forward that is distinctly not science.
     
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