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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 05/13/2005 : 13:03:48 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
I must disagree with you Dave... Join some Parasyghology Club... The Ghost Club...Read the peer reviewed journals from The Society of Psychical Research...Thoughts are changing on the subject...
But none of that reading and/or joining will change the laws of physics.
Look, Storm: point me to one article on the web in which a completely natural explanation for "ghosts" is offered without speculative assumptions. I'll be happy to read it and return with a thorough discussion of it.quote:
I do not see how it would violate any currently known laws of physics
The law of conservation of energy. The laws of thermodynamics.
Plus, if you don't see how it would violate such laws, then perhaps you can tell me precisely what kinds of energy and/or matter is involved in consciousness which would "decay" over months and/or years? If you don't have an answer to that, then the implication you've made - that because you don't see any violations, they don't exist - is based upon your ignorance of physics, and nothing else. |
- 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 - 05/13/2005 : 13:09:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Storm:
Why cannot ghosts be natural?
It isn't that ghosts cannot be natural. It is that until it can be demonstrated that they actually do exist and cannot be explained away using methods that test for those things that exist in the realm of the natural, at this time, claims of their existence must be regarded as a paranormal.
Obviously, if it can be demonstrated that they do indeed exist, then our current thinking about what we regard as natural would have to expand some to include ghosts.
Don't hold your breath for that to happen…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Storm
SFN Regular
USA
708 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2005 : 19:08:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
Check out this site... Wait ... do I dare...oh hell... why not...just be kind guys...
http://www.assap.org/research/scientific.html
An excellent article. The only things I would disagree with are the existence of a real "sheep/goat effect," and the idea that the "slight statistical deviation from randomness pointing towards the existence" of ESP and PK is not an institutional confirmation bias. I especially agree with this:...given the singular lack of progress, we might as well go back to the beginning. And this part:People without formal scientific training often have a poor grasp of how to construct and communicate a coherent theory. For instance, they often see no reason to demonstrate that the hypothetical mechanism they use to explain phenomena: (a) can actually exist, even in theory, (b) has ever been recorded in nature and (c) actually occurred in the case(s) described. is what I've been saying about "decaying consciousness."
It's obvious, Storm, that the sighting of a glowing woman in 1800s garb (for example) cries out for an explanation. But right now, "decaying consciousness," failure of an alien's invisibility device, and the light of Venus refracting through marsh gas all share a relatively equal amount of evidenciary footing - close to none. So while such things may spark passionate desires in us to find an explanation, until we can actually demonstrate an explanation to be correct, the most scientific thing to say is "I don't know."
And "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable statement to most of us skeptics, as we recognize that there are zillions of things we don't know (like why in my youth I was attracted to bitch goddesses, and eschewed the nice girls). We even recognize that there are things that we (as a species) will probably never know.
But, we do know the proper methods through which to go to learn things we don't know, and those methods have been wildly successful so far. As the author of the ASSAP article knows, one ignores the proper methods at one's peril. |
- 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 - 05/13/2005 : 22:47:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
It is soooo hard to say where to draw the line...
No. It isn't.
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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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bloody_peasant
Skeptic Friend
USA
139 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2005 : 13:03:57 [Permalink]
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Storm
From your link, I think this article summarizes it quite well.
quote:
The inadequacies of observation in our field are well-known. But we also suffer from a second significant problem which is rarely discussed - inadequate theories. In most fields of science there is a substantial body of accepted theory. In our field this body is very small indeed. Nature abhors a vacuum and so makes up for this lack of accepted theory with unsubstantiated speculation. Exciting though such speculation is, it does not get us anywhere much in a strictly scientific sense.
Your concept of decaying consciousness falls under the realm of speculation. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2005 : 13:11:39 [Permalink]
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Storm has yet to understand that there has never yet been produced a single shred of actual evidence that supports the claim "ghosts exist".
She will endlessly refer you to all the annecdotes and speculations, the whole time refusing to acknowledge the primary problem with her claim.
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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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