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28th July 2015, 09:24 AM | #201 |
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28th July 2015, 11:31 AM | #202 |
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You guys are reading too many comics, or werewolf magazines. Or whatever the latest craze is. The snake was the highlight of a series of problems in about six weeks of daily issues. Among other things I got bitten by a spider, stung by a scorpion, infested with ants, had a bat fly into us while sleeping, had a strange insect that looked like a brightly colored bird knocking at the window in the middle of the night. Nothing supernatural at all (I mean that). But why everyday! Day after day! A little odd. I have been thinking about the remarks as to how my memory may be at fault. I do not have total recall. I remember key points. Just which of the points do you think I may not have properly remembered? The 1960's. I cannot tell you what year, or what I was reading, or just how late it was. I do remember the features of the house, and we stayed there for a couple of years. I did not count steps. Why did I think it was a ghost? You tell me what you would think if you are in Africa with riots and burglaries, and security is a priority. The house was locked. Then one hears the unmistakeable sound of heavy footsteps starting at the front door. What would you guys as teenagers think? Can you imagine me going to my mother in the morning and saying "Mom. I think I need a psychiatric check-up. I was certain I heard footsteps in the house late last night. But because it could not have happened, I must be hallucinating." And even now, the best you (or I) can do is to say I fell asleep, and imagined the episode. But this means that my memory of the next day has to be explained. As does the reason I may have imagined what I did. Say my memory is faulty. Just how much has to be "filled in" or altered until it becomes "mundane"? Oh well. I am not out to convince anyone. I thought I might get a couple of concessions that the mysteries of the universe are still beyond our capacity to nail down, and because of that the probability for the supernatural cannot be stated as being zero (or so small that it does not matter). I also thought I would get a bit more in the way of possible (specific) explanations of these phenomenon. If not the supernatural then what? |
28th July 2015, 11:35 AM | #203 |
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Cool stories.
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28th July 2015, 11:40 AM | #204 |
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28th July 2015, 11:46 AM | #205 |
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Thanks. Living them is way cooler of course. My whole life is one series of unusual happenings that I would not say are supernatural. Family and people who know me all remark about this. One guys summed it up when he said "Every week-end you come into the office and tell us what happened. No-one I know of has anything near to the things that go on in your life." Don't be envious. The highs were great, but lows and the bad times would have been hard for most people to handle. I got accused on attracting chaos because of the blow-ups around me. Luckily I was grew up thinking that this was nothing out of the ordinary, and I was used to it. |
28th July 2015, 11:52 AM | #206 |
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28th July 2015, 11:52 AM | #207 |
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Could it be that you started anticipating something and then counting every happening as important? How many natural interactions have you had since that you just did not care about?
I've been bitten by a scorpion within a week of being in surgery, a week after almost putting my hand on a snake, shortly after chasing baboons from my kitchen, shortly after storm damage, shortly after my car battery died... Oh yeah, those big black biting ants that claim my driveway. They're fun. (Let's not forget the vast army of fungi and bacteria that are trying to murder me every second.) So what? My story is not significant like yours; there's no tint of magical spirits slipping about unseen.
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The mysteries of the universe are many. Some are within human capacity, some await new ideas, new technologies, new positions in space. Here's the thing, and you know it: Drinking imaginary water will not slake your thirst. |
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28th July 2015, 11:56 AM | #208 |
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"If I hadn't believed it with my own mind, I would never have seen it." - thanks sackett "If you stand on a piece of paper, you are indeed closer to the moon." - MRC_Hans "I was a believer. Until I saw it." - Magrat |
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28th July 2015, 12:23 PM | #209 |
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I have no trouble believing him. PartSkeptic is hypersensitive to coincidences and anything that could be conceivably be considered out of the ordinary, so of course he notices them all the time. As you have just illustrated, such things happen to you occasionally too. They happen to everybody occasionally. We usually don't notice them, or if we do we shrug them off as no big deal. Because we don't attribute any significance to them it doesn't even occur to us to consider a supernatural explanation. We might sometimes mention an odd experience to a friend or relative, but we don't tell all and sundry so we don't get a reputation for telling weird stories as PartSkeptic has. I guess we all like to have something that distinguishes us from the crowd.
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28th July 2015, 12:32 PM | #210 |
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I believe he believes it too. I was standing-in for his audience — admittedly with my bias — who, when I've been in such audiences, roll their eyes and cannot wait to change the subject and steer the bore off.
I've mentioned a person who's into pet psychics, and every other stripe of woo. Being in the same room is tough; not only on me. People actually sigh with relief when released from the sessions — like troops escaping a Sergeant. Only my ire speaking, I'm sure. |
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28th July 2015, 01:29 PM | #211 |
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29th July 2015, 01:23 AM | #212 |
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29th July 2015, 02:29 AM | #213 |
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"If I hadn't believed it with my own mind, I would never have seen it." - thanks sackett "If you stand on a piece of paper, you are indeed closer to the moon." - MRC_Hans "I was a believer. Until I saw it." - Magrat |
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29th July 2015, 03:20 AM | #214 |
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29th July 2015, 03:29 AM | #215 |
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No problem. My ego is not fragile, however I do not think it is over-sized. I am confident, and know myself - my faults and my strengths. I think we are all different, and that is good for society. We all have a part to play. Since I was not offended, there is no need for forgiveness. You are the one who has to judge yourself, and live with yourself. Having been in a number of relationships, I have learned that one cannot unsay something. I only attack people who are a serious threat to my physical well-being. These forums are somewhat different and people can at times speak their minds. |
29th July 2015, 03:34 AM | #216 |
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You sound like a good guy. And have an honest-looking avatar. Why should I not believe you? Where do I send the check? My bank is good for all and any spiritual donations. Oh, wait. You were so persuasive that I nearly forgot I have already paid big bucks for a spiritual cleaning. I have to look at the fine print for the guarantee term. |
29th July 2015, 03:41 AM | #217 |
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That is a start. Some credibility. Thanks. If the afterlife exists, maybe we will meet and have a drink and chat about the good old days, but I am not sure how we find each other. Of course, it just hit me. Mental telepathy. Imagine it and it comes true. I have a strange story that has lots of coincidences, but no supernatural connections, so I won't bore anyone with it. |
30th July 2015, 12:45 AM | #218 |
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30th July 2015, 06:48 AM | #219 |
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Sorry about that. Verifiable is confirmation of some sort. Documented by people who are trustworthy. Credible means believable - free of contradictions, backed by honest people, lack of bias. Not a science theorem, or legally acceptable. Just what a reasonable person would say might have a degree of truth. You tell me your best story, and why is is better than most. |
30th July 2015, 08:52 AM | #220 |
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30th July 2015, 09:42 AM | #221 |
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I asked you if you had anything you considered reliable. My guess would be that your answer would be "absolutely not because the paranormal does not exist" I have come across a number of cases in popular myth, but nearly all are discredited, and I do not argue with the debunking. Here is one such article.
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Does that mean that the supernatural does not exist, or that the supernatural is governed by an intelligence that does not wish evidence of its existence? The standard answer by a disbeliever is that this statement is a cop-out. And what if we are in a computer simulation or dream of an intelligent being? If there is a possibility that might be, then there is a possibility that the statement might be true. Can you prove to me that we are not in a simulation or dream? How many people like to believe that multiverses, cyclic universes and other dimensions are possible, despite the fact that proving any of these is harder than looking for glitches in reality? And why do they? Because the belief that they might be possible lessens the chance of intelligent design which some argue is evidenced by fine tuning. Cosmologists acknowledge that our universe is like a pencil that stays balanced on its point. |
30th July 2015, 10:32 AM | #222 |
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30th July 2015, 12:36 PM | #223 |
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30th July 2015, 03:34 PM | #224 |
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30th July 2015, 11:17 PM | #225 |
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Agreed. Personal experience. Lets see. Gadzillions of years of intelligent mental age divided by many more gadzillions of physical age. An IQ of 3 might just do it, I would say. Some might say infinity divided by infinity could give you any number, so we would need the cosmologists/mathematicians to use perturbation theory to normalize the result. Okay. I think we have beaten this dead horse enough. Pity we did not hear more from Alferd_Packer. I will attempt to bow out. |
31st July 2015, 12:54 AM | #226 |
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Personal experiences are indeed the root of most belief in the paranormal; most people give far more credence to them than to the results of decades of careful scientific research, as they have no idea how fallible their perceptions and memories are and have never heard the term 'cognitive bias'.
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31st July 2015, 01:12 AM | #227 |
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31st July 2015, 01:17 AM | #228 |
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31st July 2015, 01:20 AM | #229 |
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31st July 2015, 04:01 AM | #230 |
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Indeed, with a predisposition to believe in the supernatural being the most important such trait. Someone like flaccon/Cassidy, for example, will see the supernatural in trivial examples of pareidolia that the vast majority of people would understand the true explanation of, even if they'd never heard the word pareidolia.
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31st July 2015, 06:36 AM | #231 |
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31st July 2015, 07:20 AM | #232 |
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31st July 2015, 09:17 AM | #233 |
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31st July 2015, 10:41 PM | #234 |
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I wondered if anyone would come up with this one. Congratulations, you get the honors. Personal experience. The only "real" thing we actually have. I think therefore I am. The rest could be all hallucination, all lucid dream, or all simulation. I choose to give some credibility to my own experiences where I think the mundane explanations are hard pressed to explain them. If I heard some-one else tell me the same things rather than be my own experiences, I doubt I would feel the way I do. A person could chose to believe that there are no higher/hidden powers/spirits and just live their life. Fine with me. I choose to believe that that is one possible answer, but I think that there might be a possibility that the supernatural exists. So I choose to pray, and to take part in ceremonies. They might work for either of two reasons. One is that the supernatural does exist, and the other is that the supernatural does not exist but there are psychological positives at work. To me it is a win-win situation. |
31st July 2015, 10:42 PM | #235 |
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1st August 2015, 08:28 AM | #236 |
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Check out their history. If they have been involved in scams, and have people complaining about them they are suspect. If they are respected in their field, and their peers acknowledge their contribution (may agree or disagree) their opinion/writing can be generally trusted. Assessing credibility is done by asking questions and reviewing the answers. Evasiveness is a sign of of lack of credibility. Contradictions without a logical explanation are also suspect. Again, history will ruin a persons credibility. Lying in the past, supporting the unsupportable and so on. There is no agency or organization that assesses these things. On these forums you make up your own mind, and if you have built-in bias you may get the wrong answer. I may be mistaken in my beliefs as to possible explanations, and even in what I think I have experienced, but I say that does not mean I am untrustworthy, or lack credibility. One might be sure that there is no supernatural and uses this to say that anyone who thinks there might should automatically be untrustworthy, or is not credible. Different folks, different personal standards. |
1st August 2015, 08:55 AM | #237 |
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When it comes to assessing the reality of something that has never been proven to exist, anecdotes are beyond useless. Credibility is meaningless.
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1st August 2015, 09:15 AM | #238 |
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1st August 2015, 09:30 AM | #239 |
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Credibility given by ghosts is credulity.
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1st August 2015, 10:24 PM | #240 |
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