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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 07/29/2005 : 16:33:02 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
Originally posted by Ricky
quote:
In short: What is "Persistent personal energy"? How has it been observed? How does it work?
Persistent Personal Energy... hmm... phantasml manifestations of those previously known on earth...observed through the never ending testomonies of the public...
I thought the you were originally trying to explain that phantasmal manifestations (ghosts) were made of Persistent Personal Energy. You now claim that Persistent Personal Energy is a ghost. Storm, you're talking in circles. If ghosts are energy, what is this energy? Define it, please. Explain it's origin and how one can measure it. Otherwise you and the authors you read are just making up terms that sound scientific but explain nothing.
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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 |
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 16:57:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
but may be some residue of the force or energy which he generated while alive.
Assuming a physics-y definition of energy, does that even make sense? People, consume energy, not generate it. We 'generate' heat but that's just us not using the energy we consume efficiently. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 17:14:14 [Permalink]
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| So, Storm, why did you source Susan Blackmore? I doubt the two of you will ever agree on anything... |
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 |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 17:26:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H.Humbert
quote:
I thought the you were originally trying to explain that phantasmal manifestations (ghosts) were made of Persistent Personal Energy. You now claim that Persistent Personal Energy is a ghost. Storm, you're talking in circles. If ghosts are energy, what is this energy? Define it, please. Explain it's origin and how one can measure it. Otherwise you and the authors you read are just making up terms that sound scientific but explain nothing.
I beleive that some Ghosts are Persistent Personal Energy..Decaying Consciousness... Disintegration of the Personality... I am not sure of the Origin ..some say Gods or God....Some say big Bang... some say Evolution... We have found no ways to measure{I think no one takes the time }No serious though goes into it..
Myers writes
quote:
In the first place, we have no warrant for the assumption that the phantom seen, even though it be somehow caused by a deceased person, is that deceased person, in any ordinary sense of the word.We shall find for the ghost a much closer parallel in those hallucinatory figures or phantasms which living persons can sometimes project at a distance. When Mr S. for instance ,caused by effort of will an apparition of himself to a waking percipitent out of sight, he himself was awake and conscious in the place where , not his phantom, but his body stood. Whatever then, the phantom was, however generated,or conditioned we cannot say that it was... himself... And equally unjustifiable must be the common parlance which speaks of the ghost as though it were the deceased person himself..a revenant coming back amongst living men
and continues
quote:
Just as we cease to say that the phantom is the decesed, so also must we cease to ascribe to the phantom motives by which we imagine the deceased might be swayed.
quote:
What connotations then, are we to give to the word.. ghost.... a word that has embodied so many unfounded theories and causless fears?
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Storm
SFN Regular
USA
708 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 17:32:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
quote:
So, Storm, why did you source Susan Blackmore? I doubt the two of you will ever agree on anything...
Why because she does not believe? Because her expiremnets did not work...I believe that what is lacking in the PSI field is the imortance emotions and its role in psychic phenomenon.. |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 17:43:15 [Permalink]
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| Honestly Storm, those excerpts tell be absolutely nothing new or outside the Realm of Woo Woo(tm). |
"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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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 17:49:39 [Permalink]
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Same old stuff, it seems. Invent some terms, define them using other made-up terms, provide no possible way of creating a metric through which these ideas could be tested, and voila! a "science" is born.
If this is the course this topic is going to take, as has happened in the past, then it definitely belongs in the Pseudoscience folder, because that's precisely what it is: bad science which needs to be exposed.
Let's go back to Myers:So let us describe a "ghost" as a manifestation of persistent personal energy or as an indication that some kind of force is being exercised after death which is some way connected with a person previously known on earth. Translation: a "ghost" is an unknown property of unknown etiology of an unknown dead guy. Got it.It is theoretically possible that this force or influence , which after mans death creates a phantasmal impression of him, may indicate no continuing action on his part, but may be some residue of the force or energy which he generated while alive. Translation: Myers is guessing that this unknown property of unknown etiology of an unknown dead guy might not be the guy's "consciousness," but might be an unknown "leftover" of unknown properties the living guy might have had.
Is there anything specific here which can be tested as a science? Of course not.
Storm wrote:quote:
Buy it Pleco... but it is all ancedoctal...so you might not accept it...that is up to you...it is based on a Census conducted by Frederick Myers, Frank Podomore, Edmund Gurney... Members of the founding members of the Socity for Psychical Research..
Don't you think there ought to be better evidence available now that 150 years (or more) have gone by, and science has advanced so much in the same time? If Myers' stuff is the best there is, it's no wonder that "the theory of Personal energy" is not a theory, but instead just a conjecture.
And why point out the Blackmore paper? She's been a loud voice opposing the "science" of the "near death experience" for quite some time now, and the paper you linked to, boiled down, says this:I wish to ask two questions about the relationship between consciousness and psi.
1. Are there any paranormal phenomena? and
2. If there are, do they help us to understand consciousness?
...
I will therefore answer my original two questions with "probably not", and definitely "no". Which doesn't help your "theory of personal energy" case at all. |
- 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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Storm
SFN Regular
USA
708 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 18:06:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave
quote:
Don't you think there ought to be better evidence available now that 150 years (or more) have gone by, and science has advanced so much in the same time?
Sure I think that...look how long it took for us to discover something like plumbing...electricity...it took centuries... but Dave the sightings don't stop..the encounters still happen..Some strong evidence has come out..and these amateur ghost hunters have picked up on a lot of it... No body listens though... To many debunkers
Just because Blackmore has opposing results does not mean I cannot learn from her work...
I don't agree necessarily with the word Conjecture though |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 18:20:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Storm:
Just because Blackmore has opposing results does not mean I cannot learn from her work...
One can only hope…
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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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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 18:50:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
Sure I think that...look how long it took for us to discover something like plumbing...electricity...it took centuries... but Dave the sightings don't stop..the encounters still happen..Some strong evidence has come out..and these amateur ghost hunters have picked up on a lot of it... No body listens though... To many debunkers
No, there is too little real evidence. Strange EMF readings - for just one example - don't mean anything unless you've already demonstrated that strange EMF readings only happen in places where ghosts exist. That has never been shown, but "amateur ghost hunters" trot out the EMF detectors as if they were actually measuring ghosts. It's entirely pseudoscience.quote:
Just because Blackmore has opposing results does not mean I cannot learn from her work...
No, but quoting her in this thread is a non-sequitor, at best.quote:
I don't agree necessarily with the word Conjecture though
Tough luck. A scientific theory is a working and useful explanation of our observations of the world, which makes correct predictions about what we can find in the world. The "personal energy" conjecture is not a useful explanation of anything, since it makes no predictions about any phenomena. It is only a "theory" in the layman's sense of the word: a guess. |
- 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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Storm
SFN Regular
USA
708 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 18:58:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave
quote:
It is only a "theory" in the layman's sense of the word: a guess.
Whatever...other than all that can't you conceive in your minds what I have written about discussed...other than knock it down.. So you don't agree so what...
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 19:07:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
Whatever...other than all that can't you conceive in your minds what I have written about discussed...
What's inconceivable is that you can say such a thing to me, when you know that I used to believe in all this stuff. I'll be charitable, and assume you've just forgotten that discussion.quote:
other than knock it down.. So you don't agree so what...
Okay, so what?
It's also inconceivable that you come to this skeptical forum, start threads in which you appear to want to discuss the merits of some idea, and then get annoyed when we actually do so. |
- 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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Storm
SFN Regular
USA
708 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 19:20:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave
quote:
Okay, so what?
It's also inconceivable that you come to this skeptical forum, start threads in which you appear to want to discuss the merits of some idea, and then get annoyed when we actually do so.
Bullsit Dave... I half expect you to have a intellectual converstion instead of just knocking me down... I do more than appear to discuss merits of ideas..
originally posted by dave
quote:
What's inconceivable is that you can say such a thing to me, when you know that I used to believe in all this stuff. I'll be charitable, and assume you've just forgotten that discussion.
What have you experienced with ghosts Dave? I don't think you ever explained exactly what changed your mind... |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 20:28:43 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
I half expect you to have a intellectual converstion instead of just knocking me down... I do more than appear to discuss merits of ideas..
Ok, here's what I think in response to some of the things you've posted, Storm.
First, I'm not convinced that the people who report seeing apparitions are necessarily accurately reporting what they see. I'm not saying they are liars, just that they may be confused, emotionally unstable, or prone to see things that just aren't there.
Second, the idea that ghosts are residual energy is interesting, but so arbitrary an explanation that one wonders how it initially got brought up. Why should we even consider this possibility? If there is no way to measure ghostly energy, then how did anyone ever first suppose ghosts were energy? Did they just make it up? It would appear so. You might as well just suppose ghosts are made from a special kind of marshmallow indetectable to all our instruments. It would be just as substantiated a guess.
Third, your idea that people might leave behind energy that forms ghosts during periods of extreme emotional distress is also interesting, but entirely baseless. We don't even know what this energy might be since it is so ill-defined. I don't think we can speculate yet as to what causes it might have until we have some idea of what it is we are actually dealing with. I mean, maybe this ghostly energy doesn't even exist. Why then should we wonder about what causes it? For instance, perhaps birds sweat invisible milk matter whenever they are happy, and this invisible milk is sufficient to float away ghostly marshmallows. So "haunted" places are just places where they aren't enough birds. The point is, one can literally make up any "theory" to explain ghosts, but just because they are interesting doesn't mean they are anything but wild guesses. Real theories should make useful predictions that we can test.
So that's the first place we should start. If the energy-ghost hypothesis were true, how could we test it? Do you have any ideas?
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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 07/29/2005 20:29:44 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2005 : 20:43:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Storm
Bullsit Dave... I half expect you to have a intellectual converstion instead of just knocking me down...
And things started out that way. Your ideas were thoughfully considered, and other ideas offered in response, which you knocked down as "debunking" and about which you've refused to have an intellectual conversion. Further, your "personal energy theory" has been discussed a few times already, and people have tried - patiently - to ensure that you've been made fully aware of its shortcomings. This thread is based upon the same faulty premises, yet you expect us to spend all that time, all over again. Patience wears thin after a while.quote:
I do more than appear to discuss merits of ideas..
I said you appeared to want to discuss the merits of the ideas. When people rightfully point out that there are few to no merits, you get annoyed.quote:
What have you experienced with ghosts Dave?
What's it matter? My "ripping cardboard" ghost? My friend getting possessed? A book that housed malevolent spirits? It's all irrelevant to the ideas being discussed.quote:
I don't think you ever explained exactly what changed your mind...
Yes, I did. The utter uselessness of all the "woo-woo" stuff is what did it. The fact that such beliefs consume lives at the expense of the creation of a better world for the next generations, or even this one. |
- 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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