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1st August 2015, 10:54 PM | #241 |
Lost in translation
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You are now saying that science is based on anecdotes. Therefore you are far worse than simply wrong. Perhaps you meant simple minded logic.
The paranormal is not "yet unproven". It has been extensively researched and nothing of value was ever found. Again, anecdotes are useless. You should take the time to educate yourself on the subject and finally understand WHY anecdotes have no value. |
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3rd August 2015, 10:59 PM | #242 |
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Old wood floors are like old ninja turtles; you never know what you're going to get.
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14th September 2015, 03:56 PM | #243 | ||
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15th September 2015, 11:03 AM | #244 |
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Thanks.
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20th September 2015, 07:50 AM | #245 |
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Because they derive from the models that currently best describe how our universe behaves?
To my jaundiced eye the supernatural is not an explanation, but quite the opposite - a label for whatever you can't conceive of an explanation for. So it is often either a failure of imagination or knowledge - or both. |
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Simple probability tells us that we should expect coincidences, and simple psychology tells us that we'll remember the ones we notice... |
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20th September 2015, 08:19 AM | #246 |
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If you observe with a tool that is demonstrably unreliable, your observations will be unreliable. The reliability of our inferences depends on the reliability of our observations. Science is based on making the most reliable observations possible. Anecdotes are, in general, insufficiently reliable to do more than indicate an area of interest for science to examine.
I assume you mean 'unobserved' rather than 'unproven'? Whatever, that doesn't mean that anything unproven/unobserved can exist. |
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Simple probability tells us that we should expect coincidences, and simple psychology tells us that we'll remember the ones we notice... |
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20th September 2015, 11:30 AM | #247 |
Lost in translation
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This "yet unproven" meme is all about the idea that woomeisters are so much more clever than scientists. They have it all figured out and maybe, just maybe, someday, those close-minded scientists will catch on and finally realize the quacks were right all along. Nothing is woo, it's all just undiscovered science.
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"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." - Punshhh "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." – Stephen Wright |
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3rd October 2015, 09:00 AM | #248 |
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Consider that many people claim to observe ghosts. Many such claims can be disregarded as unreliable. But what of the claims that are relatively free of the "woo" element? And the "usual suspects" such as mass hallucination, etc do not seem to adequately apply given the circumstances. Is it then possible that ghosts exist?
So I do not mean unobserved. By unproven I mean that the observations lack the scientific criteria for acceptance as a phenomenon. |
3rd October 2015, 09:08 AM | #249 |
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Reliability is irrelevant. Anecdotes are useless and inadmissible when evaluating extraordinary claims.
Not having all the facts to actually explain every experience does nothing to support supernatural explanations. Funny that when we do have all the facts, there's always a mundane explanation. When we don't, you can always invoke the woo of the gaps, but that doesn't mean a thing. Anecdotes are nothing. |
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3rd October 2015, 09:09 AM | #250 |
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It has nothing to do with intelligence. Mankind has always observed the universe around him, and tried to find explanations. Those explanation have gone from mystical to technical. But science is a long way from explaining why the universe exists, and cannot say for sure that it is not all an illusion that may be subject to anomalies. |
3rd October 2015, 09:11 AM | #251 |
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3rd October 2015, 09:18 AM | #252 |
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"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." - Punshhh "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." – Stephen Wright |
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3rd October 2015, 11:57 AM | #253 |
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So far with over half a year of "struggling", old honest Al the "extremely skeptical" person still can't come up with a rational explanation for floors creaking, despite his trade as a building safety inspector. He claimed to be inspecting the ceilings specifically, so nothing could be more important to that professional judgement than, uh, the ceiling itself, attached directly to the second story creaking floor above.
It's antisocial behavior to ignore repeated questions after demanding someone's attention to a problem you claim is a "struggle" for you and asking for their help. So it is a lesson to those who think that enjoying a little "duper's delight" by fibbing to people - exaggerating, embellishing, leaving out important story components, etc. - the only way out of the trap you have set for yourself (besides the more ethical strategy of coming clean) is to be rude. He concealed anything that would instantly solve this "struggle" of his: like the building itself, or the engineer he is pretending believes in ghosts. There is zero doubt in my mind that I could ask this engineer why the floors in that building creak and he will give me a straight answer that doesn't involve ghosts. When we fib about Santa Claus, our intention is the delight the children have in it. We get joy out of seeing their faces light up, their glee, and decades later those children still look back with happy memories about Christmas. They don't resent being lied to about Santa Claus. Look how this contrasts with the OP's little game of duper's delight. Parents come clean about Santa Claus. We "confronted" our parents in my family - my sister had discovered the presents in their closet the night before Christmas. Our parents did not double-down on the lie. They came clean. To ignore our question, to evade or divert us, to put effort into manipulating us into a false belief in Santa Claus after this bullet-proof evidence is discovered... that would have been abusing us. For the parents, children maturing to the point of reasoning like this is also a joy. Growing, maturing, learning - so we are proud of them. Honest Al had to think ahead about how he would be questioned. So he knew what questions to expect, how to evade answers, what to conceal... He posted on a skeptic site for crying out loud, not a kindergarten class. What would be a lot more beneficial to skeptics concerning themselves with bogus ghost stories is to come clean on his own bogus ghost story. The benefit of the doubt I can give him is that he thought it would be a fun little game, without sufficient thought to how it had to end logically: it is a bogus story and skeptics will probe the places where they are being deceived. You have to be rude to them in order to defeat the logical lines of inquiry. He didn't think through how rude he had to be at the end, sans coming clean. You ran away Al, hoping we would forget about it. But that just proves beyond any doubt that your claims about "struggling", about needing our help to solve the problem, and most especially about being "extremely" skeptical were merely classic embellishment/exaggeration. This lending of our credentials to woo always backfires under scrutiny. The game being played is to say that you are a professional building inspector that can't figure out why floors creak. To a skeptic, we conclude in the context of all this other deceptive behavior that you are either incompetent at your professed trade, or you are lying. Why not model your behavior, Al, after the parents who come clean about Santa Claus. Because evading, diverting, running away - that is what makes it trolling. |
3rd October 2015, 12:11 PM | #254 |
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5th October 2015, 07:38 AM | #255 |
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9th October 2015, 08:24 AM | #256 |
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As a skeptic who had an intense visitation dream (Google it), I have some sympathy for those who have realistic ghost encounters. If not for a skeptical background I would absolutely have zero doubt that I had seen and touched a ghost. I have less sympathy for fakers, however.
If a reasonable way is found to overcome the awkwardness of recruiting bereaved subjects and surveilling their bedrooms, paranormal researchers should look into visitation dreams. If I was going to look for ghosts it would start there. I am not going to, but it looks more fruitful than hanging out in old houses with video equipment. |
14th October 2015, 10:06 PM | #257 |
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I'm not certain how you would go about researching visitation dreams. I know without a doubt that my mother visited me after she died. We were still young at the time, both my younger siblings were still in school. My mother told me what was going to happen to them and asked me to look after them. Amazingly, what she said came true.
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14th October 2015, 10:08 PM | #258 |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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15th October 2015, 12:31 AM | #259 |
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15th October 2015, 03:15 AM | #260 |
Lost in translation
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"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." - Punshhh "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." – Stephen Wright |
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15th October 2015, 02:59 PM | #261 |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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15th October 2015, 03:01 PM | #262 |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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15th October 2015, 03:31 PM | #263 |
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"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." - Punshhh "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." – Stephen Wright |
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15th October 2015, 08:13 PM | #264 |
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Maybe not for you, but it happened to me.
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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15th October 2015, 08:38 PM | #265 |
Lost in translation
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"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." - Punshhh "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." – Stephen Wright |
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15th October 2015, 10:42 PM | #266 |
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That's wonderful.
It still didn't happen. Your mother did not visit you in a dream. You simply - and rather tautologically - dreamed about it. You have chosen to believe that this was, in some way, actually her. Rationality says otherwise. And no, other people who had the same experience would not necessarily believe what you do. |
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15th October 2015, 11:33 PM | #267 |
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There is nothing about your anecdote that cannot be explained without postulating something that contradicts everything we have discovered about how the world works. There is therefore no good reason for anyone, including you, to think that your dead mother visited you in a dream.
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16th October 2015, 04:39 PM | #268 |
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Sure there is, because it happened.
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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16th October 2015, 06:03 PM | #269 |
Lost in translation
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People's dreams are not a place in spacetime where spirits or whatnot can visit. Think about it.
Even if there was such a thing as the spirits or the souls of the dead or whatever, they could not possibly interfere with your synapses at night no matter how much you wish it were so. |
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"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." - Punshhh "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." – Stephen Wright |
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16th October 2015, 06:09 PM | #270 |
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"The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort." - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth |
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16th October 2015, 06:16 PM | #271 |
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You are right. You can explain what you think my experience was, or meant, but life is more than chemical reactions in the brain or statistics on a page. It was real to me and that's all that matters.
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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16th October 2015, 06:22 PM | #272 |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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16th October 2015, 06:27 PM | #273 |
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16th October 2015, 06:30 PM | #274 |
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It is as rational as believing in numbers on a piece of paper.
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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16th October 2015, 06:32 PM | #275 |
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"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." - Punshhh "There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." – Stephen Wright |
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16th October 2015, 06:39 PM | #276 |
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"The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort." - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth |
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16th October 2015, 06:41 PM | #277 |
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I've encountered this just recently, Maurice, where someone took research results, oversimplified and misinterpreted the conclusion, then applied that inappropriately to reinforce their argument. It happens here quite frequently.
Many of you don't know how to recognize bad research when you read it and believe what someone else says the research indicates. IMO that is no different than having faith in something unfounded. It is far from being a rational approach to life. |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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16th October 2015, 09:02 PM | #278 |
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"The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort." - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth |
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16th October 2015, 09:39 PM | #279 |
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I'm sure you are familiar with the Allegory of the Cave? Based on that perspective, my belief isn't irrational. In fact it makes reliance on poorly understood research comparable to those prisoners that were chained in the cave.
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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16th October 2015, 09:53 PM | #280 |
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