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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 09/27/2004 : 11:59:00 [Permalink]
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beskeptigal wrote:quote:
Irregardless of the specific examples, if it started in a book or story, it doesn't need to be dis-proved. If it started because someone thinks they observed it, we should look to dis-prove it.
My point was that I believe that tales of "mind reading" and other psychic and ESP phenomena began as fables, myths or stories, looooooong before any "mere mortal" ever claimed to actually possess such abilities.
With that in mind, I don't understand how you can separate "ESP" from "fairies" in your mind.quote:
So the question becomes, do you think ESP events have been completely dis-proven. Clearly, from your post, you think so.
No. I am willing to look at new evidence in support of an ESP phenomenon, but it's going to have to overcome the historical baggage - including previous fraud - and piles of negative evidence in order to be seriously considered. ESP, in just about any form, would be a very extraordinary phenomenon, and we should demand extraordinary evidence of it.quote:
I don't think they have been proven, but I don't think they have been completely dis-proven.
And it's not our "job," as evaluators of claims, to disprove anything. It is up to the proponents to make a substantial case. Such has been lacking.quote:
You can say Etta's story can be explained by fraud, but can you prove that is the explanation?
I don't need to. Supporters of Smith's "psychic powers" have to provide the evidence which would show that the only method she could have used to gather the knowledge she had was paranormal, and not some natural means. Until they can do so, I can tentatively conclude that the method was actually something natural, even if I am unable to state what that natural method was.
By way of analogy, if I found my home safe empty (if I owned one), it would be reasonable for me to assume I had been robbed, even though I may not see any overt evidence of a break-in. It would be up to those proposing that I had not been robbed, but instead that my valuables had been rendered magically invisible and insubstantial, to prove their case. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2004 : 12:20:56 [Permalink]
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quote:
I don't think they have been proven, but I don't think they have been completely dis-proven.
The burden of proof lies with those making the claim. It is perfectly acceptable to dismiss unevidenced claims, and foolish to try to "dis-prove" anything.
Often, I think, people confuse alternate explanations for evidence with "dis-proof". If I evaluate a piece of evidence, and find a better explanation for it than the original claim, I have not "dis-proved" that claim.
The only way to "dis-prove" something is to provide solid proof of something else that would totally preclude the first claim. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2004 : 23:37:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
I include some myths and legends because I think many were meant as fiction even if they were describing some ancient religious belief. This doesn't apply to all myths...So again, it isn't the specific thing that was originally written as fiction, but rather the simple statement, if it started as fiction, no need to explore it. If it started as a bad interpretation of something real, it's not in the same category.
Well, almost one of the earliest examples of "psychic" ability was the Oracle at Delphi. Some of the theories I've heard explaining the phenomena was that the temple was located on a natural gas leak, leading to all sorts of hallucinations and "visions." The actual business of prediction was probably fueled by a scam whereby sealed requests which were "offered to the gods" were subsequently recovered, opened, and read by the priestesses.
So one can explore even ancient claims of psychic ability in a skeptical manner. I'm not sure that it matters whether something had been put forward as legitimate or not. In fact, its often difficult to discern how literal many cultures were in their symbolism or religious texts. Part of being a skeptic to me means searching for rational explanations. I don't understand why we shouldn't always assume there is one.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 09/27/2004 23:38:16 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 02:38:35 [Permalink]
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I think you are making too much of my distinction between a literary existence of something and an event which someone has 'thought up' an unnatural explanation for.
Start with the question of why even go through this mental exercise? Some people claim they would not rule 'anything' out, only rule things in. First, I am skeptical that such a position is possible since 'everything' would have to include exclusionary things that could only exist if something else did not. But mainly, I find this position to be impractical.
So to clear a few things off the table right away, I see no reason to remain open to something that arose from pure imagination. It was made up. JK Rowling made up Diagon Alley. I don't have to have an 'open mind' that Diagon Alley is possible. I can have an open mind that new things may be discovered that have not yet been revealed, but with no other reason to consider something like Diagon Alley than Rowling's books, I do not need to consider it.
John called just as I was thinking of John. The explanation for this event may be totally made up from one's imagination, the 'made up' explanation is ESP. In that case, research leads us to conclude such an event does not occur in a greater amount than would be expected to occur by pure chance. The event was real. ESP for an explanation was ruled out by evaluation of the evidence. Chance occurrence was ruled in.
But some events put coincidence to the test. Now there may not be sufficient evidence to rule ESP in or out. ESP is a 'possible' explanation, even if someone imagined ESP was occurring without any mechanism of action. We have lots of observed phenomena that a mechanism of action is only postulated but has yet to be determined. Or maybe the mechanism of action hasn't even been postulated because it isn't obvious.
Most of the cases of reported ESP can be ruled out, as can most UFOs, if I dare bring that into the thread. But of the remaining rare cases of unexplained events, do I want to dismiss any of a number of explanations that have been postulated?
Clearly there is no evidence any UFO is of an ET origin. And, no ESP event has been proven. As you say, it is up to the claimant to provide the evidence or proof. But in these cases, can I also provide the proof of the negative? No, or I would be able to explain all of the events. So I choose to keep an open mind.
As I said with Loch Ness, there is sufficient evidence to rule out a large creature in the loch. With Astrology, it can be ruled out. Lots of things can be ruled out because they lend themselves to be more easily evaluated.
But there are a few UFO and ESP events that have not been fully explained. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean an unnatural explanation is needed. Clearly, natural explanations are most likely there, perhaps not fully understood yet. But, some of these kind of events have been well documented and haven't been fully explained.
So as a good little skeptic, I can't dismiss remote possibilities without evidence any more than I can accept them without evidence. Even when that really strong logic component in my brain is saying, "There will be a natural explanation, there will be a natural explanation."
Besides, it's a lot more fun to keep a few mysteries still alive. All the mysteries from my childhood have been debunked. The ghosts, UFOs, psychic events, mysterious places that fascinated me as a child aren't even interesting anymore, because I know all the reasons they aren't real. Cosmology and quantum theory are still fascinating enough, but a little mystery of the mind doesn't hurt.
Separate story this stuff made me think of: Did you ever see those mysterious moving stones in any of those mysterious places books? The pictures are of these boulders on a dry lake bed, with dried mud trails behind them that indicate the boulders have moved. Anyway, my son and I went to find them. They are in Death Valley. We rented a four wheel drive SUV. The lake bed was about 25 miles down a dirt road. It was really cool to go to this place I had seen as a kid in books. Anyway, the stones are there but they are a tad smaller than they looked in the pictures. And, it's pretty obvious they are pushed by strong desert wind when there is enough rain to make the lake bed slick. It was great fun to check out that mystery. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 08:35:53 [Permalink]
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beskeptigal wrote:quote:
As you say, it is up to the claimant to provide the evidence or proof. But in these cases, can I also provide the proof of the negative? No, or I would be able to explain all of the events. So I choose to keep an open mind.
You, as a skeptic and a critical reviewer of alleged paranormal events, are not required to prove the negative in order to reach a tentative conclusion. Also, you can reach a tentative conclusion while still keeping an open mind, simply by saying "if new evidence emerges which shows that my conclusion is incorrect, I will change my mind."
Also, the long history of failure to demonstrate paranormal claims is evidence that such powers do not exist. Just like with the Loch Ness Monster, these things have been sought out for a long period of time, and no clear examples have emerged. At some point in time, when searching for something, it becomes reasonable to say "it doesn't exist," and unreasonable to say "well, let's try looking under this rock." Again, new information can prompt the search to begin anew, but there hasn't been new positive information about paranormal claims for many decades.quote:
I see no reason to remain open to something that arose from pure imagination. It was made up.
My personal speculation is that ESP and other mental powers are based upon pure imagination, but their "births" have been lost to history, even oral tradition. Differently from you, however, I won't discount the utility of human imagination in discovering real things. ESP might exist, and the fact that humans dreamt it up long before any solid evidence of it has been uncovered is no more a point against the hypothesis than the fact that quantum entanglement was imagined long before it was ever observed is a point against quantum theory as a whole. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 08:55:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Beskeptigal:
As you say, it is up to the claimant to provide the evidence or proof. But in these cases, can I also provide the proof of the negative? No, or I would be able to explain all of the events. So I choose to keep an open mind.
Joe Nickell, the lead investigator of paranormal claims for csicop avoids the word "debunk." He sees himself as an investigator. He takes his investigations on a case by case basis. While it is pretty clear that any claim of paranormal activity or abilities must be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism, he believes that each claim must be weighed on it's own merits... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 09:30:58 [Permalink]
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When I was in school I used to carry around a stacked deck of cards. I put the queen of hearts on top the king of clubs on the bottom, the ace of spades and hearts in the middle and had a general knowledge of where most of the most popular cards were in the deck.
You then ask people at random to name a card and depending on what they say you try to reveal their card on the first try. It only works on like one in ten people, but boy are they amazed, especially the queen of hearts pickers. Give them a 'shazam' and let them see that you havnt changed the deck in anyway.
I could have started a cult I tells ya. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 13:18:15 [Permalink]
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| Hey, that's a good idea. I could use the money. Nah, I'd never do that... or would I? |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 14:29:51 [Permalink]
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I don't think we are in disagreement here, Dave, perhaps you are misinterpreting what I am saying.
quote:
you can reach a tentative conclusion while still keeping an open mind
Yep, that's what I'm saying.
quote:
Also, the long history of failure to demonstrate paranormal claims is evidence that such powers do not exist.
Yep, tentatively with a tiny little opening in one's mind. The difference in Loch Ness is just that some pretty definitive studies were done along with the repeated negative studies.
quote:
Differently from you, however, I won't discount the utility of human imagination in discovering real things. ESP might exist, and the fact that humans dreamed it up long before any solid evidence of it has been uncovered is no more a point against the hypothesis than the fact that quantum entanglement was imagined long before it was ever observed is a point against quantum theory as a whole.
Here you have misinterpreted me. This is not different from my view.
I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean by strictly literary imagination, or you are having a hard time understanding what I mean. I am not talking about imagination. I'm only talking about purposeful story imagination. Do you think because JK Rowling thought up Diagon Alley we should consider it possibly exists? Don't you think we can leave that claim out of our speculations about the Universe?
People are funny. When they read sci-fi or fantasy stories, they sometimes start acting as if the story was speculation or imagination or whatever you want to call it about real possibilities. Yet, for the cases I am talking about, the author or originator of the story never intended it to represent real possibilities. So a fictional story, thought up solely as an intended fictional story, is not enough of a basis for me to add that fiction to the open part of my mind.
On the other hand, if someone imagines parallel universes while contemplating the Universe, then that can go in my open mind section. It might seem like an indistinct difference, but if you use the Diagon Alley example, to me it makes sense. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 09/28/2004 15:33:03 |
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Renae
SFN Regular
543 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 18:40:35 [Permalink]
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I see a continuum of:
skepticism -------------------- suggestibility
Or maybe
critical thinking --------------------- gullibility
With everyone landing somewhere on that continuum on any given issue--with the freedom to land at a different place for each issue. For example, I think Bigfoot and Loch Ness are more probable (although still improbable) than UFOs abducting us and playing with our pee-pees.
I'm not sure what "open-minded" means any more; I can't nail down a meaningful definition of it (despite the excellent replies here, I'm still nebulous.)  I do, though, keep possibilities in my head without deeming them certain, likely, or probable.
I like what beskeptigal said about mystery. Isn't part of skepticism admitting what we don't know? |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 19:05:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Isn't part of skepticism admitting what we don't know?
Yep.
Which is not the same thing, by a long shot, as saying that we "can't" know something. The two are often confused. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2004 : 19:43:03 [Permalink]
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beskeptigal wrote:quote:
Here you have misinterpreted me. This is not different from my view.
While I'm thankful that I got the rest correct, I still fail to see a substantial difference in these two things:- Invention for the sake of "art" which is misinterpreted, and
- invention for the sake of explanation, interpreted as intended.
While the latter may seem like what I was talking about with electrons, previously, what I mean is the invention (for example) of a "thunder god" to "explain" the origin of lightning, or the like. Invention of a "theory" within a context of complete ignorance.
The stories about gods almost certainly (in my view) were not intended as works of fiction, yet you appear (and note the emphasis, please) to lump them in the same category as Diagon Alley when disproving the gods of major religions.quote:
On the other hand, if someone imagines parallel universes while contemplating the Universe, then that can go in my open mind section.
On the other hand, then, if I contemplate what a real deity might be like, and imagine one, where would you categorize it? And if someone mistakes my musings for serious theology, and starts a religion around it, would that change the odds of the god's existence one way or another? Now, say I write a wholly fictional tale, and incorporate my musings about a "real" god into it, does that change the odds? What if, like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, some morons go around acting as if I were serious?
By the way, I'd be willing to bet a buck that Diagon Alley does exist, on some production company's back lot, waiting - perhaps - for another movie to be made.  |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2004 : 11:10:32 [Permalink]
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Thunder God is an interesting example, Dave. That almost goes in the literary fiction category as well. It may just be that the line between literary fiction and imagination without literary intent is not perfect.
So let me add another layer. If a person in the past imagined a thunder god, (or one in the present imagined Ramtha), it is obviously pretty stupid. But we are making that assessment because of our knowledge, without thinking through the knowledge, but using it none-the-less. I know how thunder and lightning are created, I've now ruled out the possibility of a thunder god. I don't need to keep an open mind about it.
JK's Diagon Alley was imagined for a story. I don't have to rule it out because it was never intended to be postulated as a possibility in the first place. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2004 : 13:05:52 [Permalink]
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beskeptigal wrote:quote:
It may just be that the line between literary fiction and imagination without literary intent is not perfect.
I think that line is pretty danged fuzzy, especially the farther one goes from the realm of things we know with certainty.quote:
So let me add another layer. If a person in the past imagined a thunder god, (or one in the present imagined Ramtha), it is obviously pretty stupid. But we are making that assessment because of our knowledge, without thinking through the knowledge, but using it none-the-less. I know how thunder and lightning are created, I've now ruled out the possibility of a thunder god. I don't need to keep an open mind about it.
I agree, our knowledge base changes, and as it does changes how likely various hypotheses will be.
But, on the other hand, we've got no evidence - and can have none - of the hypothesis that we are all mind-controlled puppets of some hyperintelligent beings from planet Turnok. Our knowledge base about this cannot change. Should we write it off as fiction, even though there is a non-zero possibility that it is true? Indeed, I did just make it up, but that doesn't automatically mean it is not reality, and I just guessed really luckily. Perhaps I guessed wrong, and they're really from planet Tunrok.
I believe that mind powers - by whatever name you want to call it - are a human invention along the lines of the Thunder God, above. That doesn't mean that ESP doesn't exist.
Rowling may have intended Diagon Alley to be nothing but fiction, but there is a non-zero possibility that something is named with those sounds on some other planet, right this moment. It may even be an alley. It may even have shops on it. Of course, the more detail one adds, the less likely the odds. But still, simply saying it doesn't exist because Rowling invented it as fiction is not necessarily sound. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2004 : 01:18:44 [Permalink]
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| I'm too practical to get so philosophical, Dave. I like to keep it simpler. If someone starts wearing Harry Potter robes and treating the book as non-fiction, I don't think I'd debate the issues with him. If someone speculates that we really are in a Matrix, that our thoughts are the Universe and there is no physical component as we know it, well, that's sort of been tossed around before. I don't think it's likely but I could keep an open mind about it. The two are different in the way my mind chooses to categorize them, which is really all we are talking about anyway. |
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