Believe in ghosts?

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

They never bothered to expand upon exactly what they meant by the word "protect."

Maybe they simply meant to protect you from the anger you might have to deal with if any of those folk found you rude ... and not special forces or powers at all.
Interesting, though.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

OK it seems there's no way to stop this thread from going haywire. You cannot categorically claim that folks that believe in ghosts are idiots and delusional fools. You could never come up w/any evidence to support that claim as much as folks that do believe in ghosts can back their beliefs up and provide evidence.It's not like we're at a market and someone has a coupon for a dollar of and the next guy doesn't. IT also has NO significance on our economy or any of our importance on the world. ARE YOU KIDDING ME with that line?

Actually, yes, I can claim that they are delusional fools.
Because anyone believing in ghosts is suborning actual evidence in favor of the belief they would prefer for personal reasons.

I get it... you are afraid to die, you want to believe in magic and that you have an existence beyond death...
And on that basis you cling like frightened children to the slightest trace of an idea that might support that comforting belief system.

But, sorry, NOTHING pointed to by believers as 'evidence' of ghosts qualifies as evidence.

Evidence can be DEMONSTRATED. It's a requirement.

A scorch mark on a tortilla that incidentally has an outline that seems similar to a grpahic image of jesus is NOT evidence of the miraculaous... its evidence that your brain can identify and correlate patterns.
And make mistaken assumptions as to what you are seeing.

Here's the acid test. IF there are no such things as ghosts, THEN all evidence for ghosts will fall into two broad categories.
Faked evidence, identifiable by the profit motives of the fakers.

And sincere evidence, which will ALWAYS be in the form of ambiguous and ill defined imagery or sounds.

The reason WHY sincere evidence will always be ambiguous is because when sincere believers collect well defined and unambiguous evidence, it will always show that the phenomenon in question is NOT a ghost and has a perfectly ordinary explanation.
Thus, definitive evidence collected in sincerity will always be discarded as not being evidence of ghosts, and the only evidence remaining will be the stuff that is SO ambiguous that you can't really tell what it is.


This is the predictable profile of evidence being collected for things that do not really exist.

And what do you know... this is precisely the profile that fits ALL purported evidence of ghosts, lock ness monsters, UFOs and bigfeets.



And, Sorry but people believing in delusional and insupportable nonsense DOES affect our economy.

When supposedly intelligent citizens can not discern real information from malarky, can not understand the parameters of proof and actual science, then they can not adequately assess the informaiton they are exposed to.

If you can't tell WHY the "evidence" for ghosts is total bullshit, then how the hell are you supposed to make informed decisions about REAL scientific findings?

This kind of fundamental inability to tell fact from fiction is why we end up IGNORING global warming, why we end up endorsing Free Market theories that every scientific model proved decades ago to be disastrously flawed.

Its why Conservatives can not understand how their policies caused this mess and continue to push for the same idiocy that got us here.

Just because people who DO understand science and technology can make a cell phone that ANY imbecile can operate does not mean You are a technologist because you have a cell phone.

In the modern world, our nation will prosper or fail in direct relation to what percentage of the people can comprehend the technology that keeps us alive and our nation growing.

When enough dumb fucks believe in Wahabism and Jesus... we get religious wars.

When enough dumb fucks imagine that fuzzy pictures of indistinct shadows constitute a good argument for an entire supernatural elaboration of spirits and incorporeal people... then they make for lousy voters on issues that actually can be proven true or false.

I don't give a damn what anyone BELIEVES to be true.
What the fuck can they DEMONSTRATE to be true.


That ability to demonstrate truth is the difference between living in condos, and living in caves.

 

[2322]

Just because you don't believe they exist doesn't mean they're not real.

You know you can't prove a negative Phil. It's impossible. Give up. The only thing that you can prove is that there is no definitive evidence. And once again, you completely discount the possibility that ghosts are a psychological phenomenon when, in fact, they very well may be if laboratory experiments which induce people to believe they are seeing gray aliens or are experiencing succubi are any indication. Yes, Phil, science does have an answer for alien abduction and succubi.

I do not believe ghosts are necessarily supernatural and as I said before, if they are, then science has to shut-up and let the metaphysicians and theologians work on that one because there's nothing science can do about it.

There is an answer out there and to deny that there is, is to deny the nature of scientific inquiry itself. Millions, perhaps billions, of people throughout all of history have seen ghosts in various forms and manifestations, each (oddly enough) suitable to their cultures. That means something is going on.

To dismiss a universal phenomenon outright without providing a reasonable theory to explain that existing phenomenon is scientifically disingenuous.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

That is really a false interpretation of philosophy, Jason.

I can prove a negative all over the place.
Science routinely Proves negatives.

This is NOT the cause of that... Most research done uncovers a LACK of correlation, a lack of cause, or a lack of effect. This particle does NOT have that energy... etc.

While I can not prove to certainty that something for which there is no evidence does not exist... however.. your statement makes the implication that that fact has some positive effect on the liklihood of something unproven to exist.

It doesn't.

The lack of evidence for something IS proof of a lack of evidence.

And all things that do not exist show a lack of evidence.

Ergo a persistent of lack of evidence DOES argue for it not existing.
The longer and harder you search without finding any evidence, the more likely it is to not exist.
Like acceleration of mass to the speed of light. It is impossible. But that does not mean you cannot accelerate mass to 99.999999999% of the speed of light.

I can not prove to 100% that something for which we have no evidence does not exist... but 99.99999999999% is still pretty damn close to certain..


There is no rational basis on which to form the belief that things for which there is no evidence DO exist.


This comes down to Ockham' razor- that the simpler explantion is more likely to be true, and that the preponderance of evidence carries the argument.

So, here's the problem:
We know for a proven fact that human beings are poor observers and that our perceptions are easily confused and mistaken in searching for patterns in noise.

This is well understood scientiifically and we can even make accurate predictions of the KIND of errors humans make in perception.

We also have a known fear of death and desire to believe in an afterlife.


We have absolutely NO credible evidence for ghosts, only anecdotal and subjective interpretation based upon ambiguous experience, experience we know we are prone to misinterpret.


So... which is it... Wishful interpretation of patterns that seem familiar?


Or actual unverifiable, non-reproducible evidence for an entire realm of which we can not find any direct trace, can not detect, measure nor even formulate a theory of... which is populated by some set of rules that allows for human minds to operate without the physical processor that we can prove must be functioning for the mind to exist?


We have discovered many things we had not heretofore understood... but they ALL had one thing in common.
Evidence of their existence. Evidence begging for an explanation.


Sorry, my friend. Wanting to believe is understandable, but it is not an argument.

And a lack of evidence IS evidence of a lack of existence. It may not be conclusive proof.. but it still counts against it.

All scientific and logically reasoned positions are open to falsification with evidence in refutation.
I say the evidence of what we do know and total lack of evidence for ghosts supports a certain hypothesis. I say the "evidence' that is forwarded perfectly fits the predictive pattern expected for collecting evidence of things that are not real.


The way science works is this...
If my theory gives the best predictions of what will be discovered, then its the best theory.

And my theory is only rendered false if you can provide evidence in refutation, or a theory that makes better predictions.

So pony up.

Cause saying I can't prove there is no such thing as an invisible monster nothing can detect is not a valid reason to believe there is such a thing.

I can make up shit you can't prove doesn't exist all day... but SAYING it would not make it even one tiny bit more likely to be true.

 

[Ethyl]

We have discovered many things we had not heretofore understood... but they ALL had one thing in common.
Evidence of their existence. Evidence begging for an explanation.

How long was Aristotle's theory about heavy objects taken for granted as truth until Galileo proved him wrong on a technicality (albeit an important one)?

This is what surprises me about you, Phil. You're relatively open-minded about most subjects but when it comes to all things unexplained you seem to sport a large blind spot. Has it ever occurred to you that someday one or more unexplained phenomena could be proven on a technicality?

 

[Bbucko]

What I find the saddest thing about Phil's position is a complete denial of spirit of any kind. I can understand skepticism, but this strident lack of doubt regarding all ephemeris just seems so wrong to me.

 

[798686]

I'm kind've on both sides of the fence on this. I used to be a strong believer in spiritual things but had a huge crisis and ended up seeing things completely differently and becoming convinced that 'real' stuff you can see and prove was all you could really rely on.

I know how easy it is to wholeheartedly believe something (on either side of the argument) and find out it wasn't quite true. So I tend to be a bit cautious about it now.

I also think that it's wrong to wipe the floor from under other people's beliefs even if you don't believe them, or think that they're unfounded. I know how devastating it can be to have your belief system collapse around you - it leaves you disorientated and totally adrift and can take a long time to deal with.

So I would say, yes present what you think are the facts of the matter - but then let other people draw their own conclusions about it - especially since there can be many different reasons why people believe what they do.

 

[B_bi_mmf]

I'm kind've on both sides of the fence on this. I used to be a strong believer in spiritual things but had a huge crisis and ended up seeing things completely differently and becoming convinced that 'real' stuff you can see and prove was all you could really rely on.

I know how easy it is to wholeheartedly believe something (on either side of the argument) and find out it wasn't quite true. So I tend to be a bit cautious about it now.

I also think that it's wrong to wipe the floor from under other people's beliefs even if you don't believe them, or think that they're unfounded. I know how devastating it can be to have your belief system collapse around you - it leaves you disorientated and totally adrift and can take a long time to deal with.

So I would say, yes present what you think are the facts of the matter - but then let other people draw their own conclusions about it - especially since there can be many different reasons why people believe what they do.

Yes, it can be very disorienting when we realize that the delusions that we have been raised to base our whole world view upon are just that -- delusions. I am sorry for the anquish that you have endured. But on the other side of the anquish there can be a new appreciation of the here and now -- and hopefully commitment to making this only life we have full of intimacy, art, science, nature, music, great sex, and making the world a better place.

Of course, people are always free to draw their own conclusions. But I don't think that non-believers should be deferential to the childish notions that so many still cling to.

I for one like the passion with which Phil expresses his views. I think that the primary reason that so many people lash out at him may stem from realizing, on some level, that he makes perfect sense, but they are still just too scared to stop clinging to thoughts of a caring God, a life after death, and angels and ghosts.

 

[798686]

Thanks Bi - mighty nice of ya! I appreciate the kindness.

I tend to look at what values and behaviour I would still be ok with whether the supernatural were true or not. Focus on those things - becoming a better person, making use of the opportunities/abilities we have - trying to treat other people well, etc. That probably sounds a bit pathetic, but I think it's helpful to have some sort of framework to base things around, lol.

If we do our best while we have the chance, and let other more ethereal stuff take care of itself - without worrying about it too much, it tends to make life easier I reckon.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

How long was Aristotle's theory about heavy objects taken for granted as truth until Galileo proved him wrong on a technicality (albeit an important one)?

This is what surprises me about you, Phil. You're relatively open-minded about most subjects but when it comes to all things unexplained you seem to sport a large blind spot. Has it ever occurred to you that someday one or more unexplained phenomena could be proven on a technicality?

That's a meaningless counter.

Know why?
Because I can DEMONSTRATE to you that Gravity is real.

I can hold an apple at arms length, and predict with 100% accuracy what will happen when I let it go. That 'evidence' of something that needs explaining is real, repeatable and has ALWAYS been there to observe.

The fact that Aristotle's theory of how that worked was replaced by Galileo's theory of how that worked is an example of two observers coming up with explanations of something REAL that could be tested.

Aristotle saw feathers fall slowly and rocks fall fast and hypothesized without testing.

Galileo TESTED Aristotle's theory and found it was incorrect. He came up with a better theory that held up till Newton improved on his, which held up until Einstein improved on Newton's.

So, please explain to me how you imagine this example of empirically testing REAL phenomena relates to the discussion of the idiocy of believing in ghosts?


Allow me to explain how it connects.

Aristotle made the mistake of NOT testing his hypothesis. He made something up and everyone just ACCEPTED it for a thousand years.

When it was tested, his hypothesis utterly failed. Not even remotely close to correct.



So, those believing in ghosts are like the folks who just TRUSTED aristotle.

Believing in a STORY they heard despite the fact that it had never been demonstrated to be true.


You folks believe in a magical story that was invented by people too primitive to be able to understand what they were really seeing. A people who did not have the means to test their ideas.

And yet... today we CAN test those ideas. Ghosts show zero evidence of existence. There are no apparitions, no 'voices'.
Equipment far more discerning than human eyes and ears has proven this.


And denying the truth of actual proof, inventing some kind of characteristic than makes these phenomena NOT happen ONLY when they are being recorded... that is just plain irrational.

After Galileo's experiments, there were a lot of folks who steadfastly maintained that Aristotle was right because they had always 'believed' he was right.

Of course... these people are the ones you can be certain did not contribute anything meaningful to the furthering of scientific understanding.


You can pick any other example you want of how we "discovered" something we never before knew...
They will ALL show clearly that there was always something THERE to explain.

Discovery of new things is always prompted by EVIDENCE.

If Ghosts can reflect or emanate light, can make 'sounds' - which are vibrations in air... then that would be detectable, and would require some kind of "theory" on how they exerted this effect on the material world.

Otherwise, its just something happening in your head... there is nothing out there you are 'seeing' nor 'hearing'...

And if that is the case... the most likely cause is mistaken perception.
I can prove people make perceptual errors routinely.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

What I find the saddest thing about Phil's position is a complete denial of spirit of any kind. I can understand skepticism, but this strident lack of doubt regarding all ephemeris just seems so wrong to me.

Well, that would be an invalid assumption of my thinking on the subject.
The people who know me consider me a very spiritual person.

I am a strong proponent of the value and effect of meditation on consciousness and I am a person who thinks enlightenment is real and worthy of pursuit.

But then... all of those aspects of spirituality can be measured and proven to be real.
You can demonstrate that meditation alters the function of human consciousness in a measurable degree.

You can show that enlightenment does actually alter people's mental processes and physiological response to stress.

None of this, however, argues that human consciousness can be divorced from the material world intact.


From my perspective, reality ITSELF is nothing more than conscious apprehension... the universe has no form without conscious perception of it.

But, again, you have to be intellectually honest.
WANTING prayer to work does not make it work. and testing shows intercessory prayer has NO effect.

That is a fact.

I don't care how much you feel God has reached out and affected your life..
All you can reasonably prove is that YOUR BELIEF in that may have been instrumental in changing your life.

Which, like a placebo, means the effect can be real even if the medicine is not.


There is something ephemeral and spiritual about the nature of self awareness and consciousness, sure.
But that does not mean it is not an phenomenon emergent from a real world with real, knowable characteristics.

And you can count on the fact that anything REALLY affecting the real world... would be detectable in the fact that it was really affecting the real world.

If prayer worked... it would have to be VISIBLE that it worked.
You can not claim God works miracles and be unable to show any miracles.

You can not claim that Ghosts are visible and not be able to show visible ghosts. Can not claim they make noise without some theory of how they make air vibrate.

You want to prove a bigfoot?
If the damn things are alive, they eat and they shit. Find some bigfoot shit.
In a world where we routinely find evidence of DINOSAUR shit, there is no excuse why we can not find bigfoot shit.

I would love to find out that ghosts were real.

But I refuse to accept weak anecdote and a total lack of evidence, just because I am scared shitless of dying.

Please... somebody... just pony up one iota of evidence that is unambiguous, or that I can't easily tell how it was staged.

I want to believe... but I refuse to be played.

 

[nicenycdick]

Damn! The only thing I believe stronger than that there are no such things as ghosts...is that I made the right decision in avoiding this thread.

 

[2322]

Please... somebody... just pony up one iota of evidence that is unambiguous, or that I can't easily tell how it was staged.

Oh give the Chase Vault a try... :tongue:

 

[Gillette]

And yet... today we CAN test those ideas. Ghosts show zero evidence of existence. There are no apparitions, no 'voices'.
Equipment far more discerning than human eyes and ears has proven this.

You can pick any other example you want of how we "discovered" something we never before knew...
They will ALL show clearly that there was always something THERE to explain.

Quarks.

Nobody looks for an explanation to something we don't have evidence for.
Sometimes the evidence is there all along but we just didn't have equipment sensitive enough to detect it yet.

Electrons, protons and neutrons used to be the smallest forms of matter and that was the last word on it.
That is until we learned different.

And denying the truth of actual proof, inventing some kind of characteristic than makes these phenomena NOT happen ONLY when they are being recorded... that is just plain irrational.

Irrational_happens.

 

[2322]

And the histamine effect of homeopathic remedies.

MADELEINE Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen's University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum.

In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These "basophils" release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions - so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule - worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths' claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.

So how could it happen? Homeopaths prepare their remedies by dissolving things like charcoal, deadly nightshade or spider venom in ethanol, and then diluting this "mother tincture" in water again and again. No matter what the level of dilution, homeopaths claim, the original remedy leaves some kind of imprint on the water molecules. Thus, however dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the remedy. -New Scientist

 

[Bbucko]

Well, that would be an invalid assumption of my thinking on the subject.
The people who know me consider me a very spiritual person.

I am a strong proponent of the value and effect of meditation on consciousness and I am a person who thinks enlightenment is real and worthy of pursuit.

But then... all of those aspects of spirituality can be measured and proven to be real.
You can demonstrate that meditation alters the function of human consciousness in a measurable degree.

You can show that enlightenment does actually alter people's mental processes and physiological response to stress.

None of this, however, argues that human consciousness can be divorced from the material world intact.


From my perspective, reality ITSELF is nothing more than conscious apprehension... the universe has no form without conscious perception of it.

...

But I refuse to accept weak anecdote and a total lack of evidence, just because I am scared shitless of dying.

Please... somebody... just pony up one iota of evidence that is unambiguous, or that I can't easily tell how it was staged.

I want to believe... but I refuse to be played.

Phil-

I spend a great deal of my time in other places saying that the plural of anecdote is not data. I am a firm believer in science and abhor people relying on superstition or conventional wisdom that is contrary to rational fact.

I do not speak often about my spirituality. It's none of anyone's business, I'm not out to convert anyone with differing ideas, and stake no claim to any universal spiritual truths. As you say above, and is confirmed by what we understand of quantum physics, perception alters reality. Light is both a beam and particle, which is impossible under Newton but understood as a given under Einstein. Its status depends entirely upon whether or not the light is perceived, and has proven that reality is ultimately subjective.

Now to the anecdotes, which as I said before are not pieces of data and are entirely subjective in nature:

I have had two Near Death Experiences (NDEs), during which I flatlined. I cannot report any tunnels of light, angels or specters of loving grandmothers. One of the experiences I remember quite well, as it happened suddenly while I was completely awake and happened as a result of an extreme reaction to a medication that was injected by a nurse while I was flat on my belly in a clinic in Boston.

The shock to my system was immediate: I heard a strong wooshing sound like pounding surf and felt intense sensations of pain and confusion as a wave started in my mouth and spread everywhere in seconds, during which I was screaming. One minute I was laying on the table, the next I was on the ceiling, looking down at what was going on. I could hear and see, but no longer had any physical sensation: the pain was gone, as was that weird ocean sound.

I could clearly see my body lying motionless and the nurse running to the phone, dialing some numbers. Within a few moments, I saw two other nurses enter through the door, accompanied by a doctor with curly hair whom I hadn't seen previously, wheeling a stainless-steel cart full of bottles and syringes. Without any sense of having moved, I found that I could see the doctor's hands as he plunged the syringe into a bottle, withdraw a serum and measure out the necessary dose as if in close-up. With no prep or preliminaries I saw him inject the needle into my ass.

I felt a strong pulling sensation moving me back to my body, then afterward a sharp pain where I'd been injected and began screaming again. I felt a hand on my head but couldn't see anything because my eyes were closed, as they had been when I was given the first injection. A few minutes passed before a nurse (not the same one who injected me) asked me if I were OK and wanted to know if I could slowly move up onto my back on the table. I said that I thought that I could, and did so with her help.

After I had rested for about 15 minutes, I asked the nurse if I'd died. Her face scrunched up and she said that I'd had a bad allergic reaction to the medication and that it had been corrected by a strong does of adreneline. When I told her that I'd been on the ceiling and saw what was going on, she listened carefully. When I reached the part about the doctor, I described him in great detail: his height, his hair color and style, his facial features, etc; she blanched a little bit but just nodded.

The doctor eventually came by, and I thanked him for "bringing me back". He chuckled and said that I hadn't gone anywhere, but was clearly rattled when the nurse told him of my adventure on the ceiling and I described a ring he was wearing in close detail.

That was in 1980, I was 20. I'll never forget the date because it was my mother's birthday that year, and we all made a big fuss over what had happened.

About 22 and one-half years later, I was very sick when a case of bronchitis turned rapidly into pneumonia in the course of a few hours. My fever spiked at 107, at which point my now-ex called an ambulance and I was rushed to the ICU and put on life support. I cannot remember anything specifically of the next 48-or-so hours at all that was quantifyably reality. But I do remember something that struck me as a dream, albeit an extremely vivid dream.

I remember really wanting to see my sister, with whom I've always been very close, to the point of our each knowing when something is seriously wrong with the other: we're connected even though we haven't lived in close proximity since the early 80s and don't call as often as we should sometimes. This was especially so at the time I am describing, as she and my ex loathed each other.

I remember seeing her at her office and remember clearly what she was wearing; I remember the color and texture of the carpet, right down to a spot near the door to her office that is worn and had a pull; I remember her desk and the brank of computer she had; and I remember seeing her interact with someone whom she admired and respected deeply who worked with her: where his office was in relation to hers, what he looked like and what he wore. But I had presumed that he was someone else, with whom she was much less friendly, and remember feeling angry around him.

As I had never visited her office, which was not even in the same state as I was living at the time, and had never met her friend/co-worker (nor seen a picture), it's tough to explain how I learned these things while I was sick in the ICU unconscious.

It took several hours for my fever to go down, and am aware of certain differences in my ability to focus, concentrate and remember details before and after. I am also much more given to emotionalism and confusion than I was before this happened to me, but c'est la vie. At least I'm still alive. I was in the UCU for a total of two days and in the hospital for about a week.

I was told later that I'd had a lot of people very worried, most especially my sister who called every few hours throughout the ordeal. When I was out of the ICU and upstairs in a hospital bed, she called me and we talked for a long time. I described my "dream" of visiting her office, described the conditions there and what I'd seen her wear. She asked me if I could be specific as to when I'd seen this, but couldn't, as I was obviously unconscious. When asked why, she told me about how she'd come to learn that I was ill, as my ex would never have called her on his own.

She said that she'd had a terrible time sleeping that night and that she felt "almost drugged" at work that day, in a different state of consciousness (she has been sober since 1990) which she couldn't shake. She also claims to have seen my image reflected in her CRT monitor so frequently that she felt compelled to call me, spoke to my ex and got the full story at that time.

I described her friend/co-worker and his office in relation to hers to the point where he was instantly recognizable. when I asked if he was the guy with whom she'd been having difficulty, she said, no, that was the good guy. When I explained how I'd been angry at seeing him and sending off negative vibes, she drew a sharp breath and told me that he'd been avoiding her and was suddenly very ill-at-ease in her company. he couldn't explain why, but he had a strong feeling that he should stay as far away from her as possible.

This guy does not subscribe to any of this hocus-pocus. He works for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a psychologist at the Department of Mental Retardation (they still call it that). He couldn't explain how or why he felt so irrationally repelled from my sister, he just did.

Now I'm sure there are rational, scientific explanations for this: all about misfiring synapses and logical expressions of emotion, but I have never found any. You could say that I'm just some guy on an internet message board devoted to big dicks, and therefore have no credibility. And you could repeat my favorite chestnut about anecdote not being the plural of data, declare that unknowns are unknown because they haven't been studied yet, whipe your hands and walk away. I wouldn't blame you.

But what happened to me was objectively real to me, my sister and her friend. And the nurse back at that clinic in 1980 told me that NDEs happen more than people'd like to admit. But at the time that that happened to me, there was nothing in my field of reference or experience to relate it to. I didn't even know the term until the nurse said it to me.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Quarks.

Nobody looks for an explanation to something we don't have evidence for.
Sometimes the evidence is there all along but we just didn't have equipment sensitive enough to detect it yet.

Electrons, protons and neutrons used to be the smallest forms of matter and that was the last word on it.
That is until we learned different.

Well- on the one hand I can actually prove to you that Quarks are nothing but a conceptual frame for understanding experimental results.

Most particle physicists will admit, when questioned, that there are no such actual discrete object's as "particles", simply because matter at that scale is better described with probability functions as waves.
I other words... its a shorthand for referring to an idea that seems to match observation... even though there is no direct evidence of the model being "true".

But then, that is where folks keep mistaking what science is all about.
ALL theory is nothing but a MODEL of reality. The fact that any theory is accurately predictive is NOT evidence that it is a perfectly true characterization of reality.

Where YOUR analysis fails is in missing the fact that Quarks were a theory fielded to EXPLAIN experimental evidence.


ONE MORE TIME.... physicists were collecting data that their previous model could not predict nor explain. The Quark theory was formulated in an attempt to come up with a conceptual model that would agree with and predict observation.

It became accepted when it correctly predicited a whole series of experimental observations.


So, pray tell me... where is the theoretical model for ghosts?
Where is the experimental evidence that needs explaining? Where is the predictive power of a theory that would accurately predict when and where ghosts will appear?


Once more... EVERY theory ever fielded was formulated to EXPLAIN existing observation.
Phenomena that could be DETECTED, recorded, and relied upon to TEST a proposed hypothesis.


Seriously... keep trying... you will not find one single discovery that was not predicated upon actual verifiable evidence.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Phil-

I spend a great deal of my time in other places saying that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Bucko... you point out that anecdote is not evidence.
And then you provide anecdote and take the position that you accept it as evidence.


You state that you suspect that there are rational explanations for all of your cited subjective hearsay, and yet you maintain that you are CHOOSING to believe in an explanation that is insupportable and, in fact does have perfectly rational explanations.

Human beings are poor observers and even worse rememberers.

For example... baseball batters swear that they swing when they see the ball coming at them.
In fact, tests prove that the visual image of the ball leaving the pitcher's hand does not reach the conscious mind until AFTER the signal to swing has already been sent to the muscles.
This not only explains why the best batters can not hit the ball better than 3 times in 10... it also demonstrates that the internal memory of seeing the ball released before swinging was created AFTER the fact.
A pure fabrication not indicative of actual processes.

i.e. its the narrative the brain concocts...to create the sense of volition... to create a narrative of cause and effect.

We know the human brian invents memory for the specific purpose of maintaining a causal sense of time.

Further... despite the mysticization of hucksters and belivers, near death experiences are WELL understood.
The Air Force did an exhaustive study of out of body and near death experiences after discovering they could create these experiences at will in a centrifuge.
They accurately determined that out of body experience occurs when the brain is subjected to specific conditions of low blood sugar and low blood pressure... and that the infamous "tunnel of light" and seeing folks you know is the result of no blood flow in the brain resulting in total oxygen deprivation. The "tunnel of light" is actually your visual cortex running out of oxygen.

As blood flow is restored, various areas come back online in a random manner that stimulates memories... and your brain tries to make sense of these random fits and starts in memory and perception by inventing a causal narrative and recording that fabrication as memory.

This should not be surprising as we often have this surreal experience of our brian trying to form a causal framework for random stimulus in the form of dreams.


So... sorry... your anecdotes do not sway... they simply underline the fact that even someone who claims to understand that there are rational explanations can be willing to delude himself into believing the Non-evidence if it provides a comforting fiction thru which they can escape death.


I feel for you... I really do... I would wish to god it were true... but then I remember there is no evidence for God either.

 

[midlifebear]

Phil:

Well, as for reality being nothing but conscious apprehension I prefer the definition of reality as a hunch by consensus. But that's just me. I've still got cobwebs in my head from plowing through L'Être et le néant (in French) from my formative years as a college Freshman. And I'm a great believer in avoiding cultural traps of mauvaise foi spread in front of me like land mines in Cambodia while trying not to sound like an acolyte of Ayan Rand.

But I'm fond of your staunch rants. They are quite informative. And you never strike me as someone who hastily makes posts while sucking vodka through a straw as so many -- OK, two or maybe three -- of the posters who write in the political forum do.

 

[Bbucko]

Now I'm sure there are rational, scientific explanations for this: all about misfiring synapses and logical expressions of emotion, but I have never found any. You could say that I'm just some guy on an internet message board devoted to big dicks, and therefore have no credibility. And you could repeat my favorite chestnut about anecdote not being the plural of data, declare that unknowns are unknown because they haven't been studied yet, wipe your hands and walk away. I wouldn't blame you.

I covered your bases already for you, Phil. You added nothing new to the discussion. Ah well.

If, as you believe, we dissolve into nothingness once the brain dies, then you'll be vindicated, and I won't know the difference. There'll even be a part of me that feels relief at ceasing to exist, as life is frequently a nasty business and I have no reason to believe that any existence in a non-corporeal state is necessarily any better.

But if, as I believe, there is an existence that transcends the flesh, then I'll be prepared to move forward, and you'll wind up repeating the lesson that failed to stick this time around.