[quote]RhunDraco wrote:
Lonnie123 wrote:
Of course being open to any and all possibilities is good.
Actually, I disagree here, Lonnie. An open mind to “everything” makes a person a shmuck, just ready to be taken by the next con-artist who comes along (re: faith healers are the worst). Besides, being that open would mean you’d also be open to the opposing possibility, as well, which just isn’t logical. For example, something can’t be a ghost and a non-ghost at the same time.[/quote]
Well… I think you know what I mean. I dont mean be open to the idea that contradictions can exist, the laws of physics can be violated or things like that. But sure, I’m willing to believe ghosts/bigfoot/Aliens exist. I’ve just never seen or heard any compelling evidence.
[quote]After talking with people who believe in ghosts, demons, and other “supernatural” things, the one thing I see is that not a single one of these people can define what it is they’re talking about. It’s always something vague or ambiguous, an “energy” or “force” that apparently can be seen and felt but not recorded (even though some claim to have done so, but the evidence is always not available), but what really makes me laugh is when someone says “well, you won’t ever see because you don’t believe.”
How convenient.[/quote]
You may be interested in reading up on the Fantasy Prone Personality. Basically there is a subset of the population that seems to be more inclined to buy into all sorts of psuedo science and superstition more readily than others.
And you couldnt be more right about the vague and ambigious thing, psychics often rely on this to do their trickery as well.
As I asked before, why dont skeptics ever get abducted…?
I’m pretty skeptical about the presence of ghosts but there was one thing that happened while I was in College that kind of freaked me and my roomate out.
We were sitting on the couch watching tv when all of a sudden the books on our bookshelf fell off and slid across the room and under the bed. Then the regrigerator and microwave started to rock violantly. The doors opened up and our food started falling out onto the floor, which may be just from the extreme rocking. My TV and computer then started to flicker and both went off.
Now this didn’t happen at night or we would have really freaked out, we were more like, “what the fuck was that?”
[quote]p-dubs wrote:
I’m pretty skeptical about the presence of ghosts but there was one thing that happened while I was in College that kind of freaked me and my roomate out.
We were sitting on the couch watching tv when all of a sudden the books on our bookshelf fell off and slid across the room and under the bed. Then the regrigerator and microwave started to rock violantly. The doors opened up and our food started falling out onto the floor, which may be just from the extreme rocking. My TV and computer then started to flicker and both went off.
Now this didn’t happen at night or we would have really freaked out, we were more like, “what the fuck was that?” [/quote]
Not many earthquakes in Iowa. Though for the amount of movement our fridge and microwave had I think we would have felt that. Plus the none of the other furniture moved. The entire thing was just odd.
[quote]RSGZ wrote:
Egilll wrote:
there is always a logic explanation for those supernatural things,… you just don’t know it yet (or it is too hard to understand/comprehend).
regarding the ouija board and some spirit/ghost stuff, watch the seance episode of Derren Brown:
Brilliant.
Guys, watch this.[/quote]
I don’t think I had a scary enough atmosphere going into this. Most of it failed. I did almost write Manchester. The girls were, in the main, too attractive for me to concentrate on the glass.
[quote]RhunDraco wrote:
Lonnie123 wrote:
Of course being open to any and all possibilities is good.
Actually, I disagree here, Lonnie. An open mind to “everything” makes a person a shmuck, just ready to be taken by the next con-artist who comes along (re: faith healers are the worst). Besides, being that open would mean you’d also be open to the opposing possibility, as well, which just isn’t logical. For example, something can’t be a ghost and a non-ghost at the same time.
[/quote]
There is a difference between the open mind of a critical thinker, and the open mind of a gullible believer.
And critical thinking has nothing to do with education. I can’t tell you how many bull-headed PhD’s inhabit the halls of our ivory towers.
[quote]RhunDraco wrote:
Lonnie123 wrote:
tribunaldude wrote:
Not a fake. Believe what you will.
… A light of some kind. Humans are designed to see faces, and anything that even looks remotely like a face will get recognized very quickly. Go outside and look at some Stucco on the side of your house and just look at how many faces show up. Is this creepy? No, its perfectly normal.
We’re not “designed” to see faces. We evolved with an advanced, and probably mostly subconscious, ability to recognize patterns. We even insert patterns where there are none, or we interpolate and increase the complexity of something we’re seeing/smelling/feeling/sensing. Since memories partially work using relationships with past patterns, we associate “new” stimuli with already stored patterns.
Hence, seeing a spooky face in the texture of a painted wall or in a darkened, stained window, doesn’t mean we’re actually seeing the manifestation of intent by a magical, or supernatural entity. Our brains see one part of an image, and our brain constructs the rest.[/quote]
[quote]Yo Momma wrote:
RhunDraco wrote:
Lonnie123 wrote:
Of course being open to any and all possibilities is good.
Actually, I disagree here, Lonnie. An open mind to “everything” makes a person a shmuck, just ready to be taken by the next con-artist who comes along (re: faith healers are the worst). Besides, being that open would mean you’d also be open to the opposing possibility, as well, which just isn’t logical. For example, something can’t be a ghost and a non-ghost at the same time.
There is a difference between the open mind of a critical thinker, and the open mind of a gullible believer.
And critical thinking has nothing to do with education. I can’t tell you how many bull-headed PhD’s inhabit the halls of our ivory towers.
[/quote]
I agree. Lonnie didn’t specify a critical mind. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to post at midnight, when I usually go to bed at 10.
[quote]matt88 wrote:
RhunDraco wrote:
Lonnie123 wrote:
tribunaldude wrote:
Not a fake. Believe what you will.
… A light of some kind. Humans are designed to see faces, and anything that even looks remotely like a face will get recognized very quickly. Go outside and look at some Stucco on the side of your house and just look at how many faces show up. Is this creepy? No, its perfectly normal.
We’re not “designed” to see faces. We evolved with an advanced, and probably mostly subconscious, ability to recognize patterns.
We even insert patterns where there are none, or we interpolate and increase the complexity of something we’re seeing/smelling/feeling/sensing. Since memories partially work using relationships with past patterns, we associate “new” stimuli with already stored patterns.
Hence, seeing a spooky face in the texture of a painted wall or in a darkened, stained window, doesn’t mean we’re actually seeing the manifestation of intent by a magical, or supernatural entity. Our brains see one part of an image, and our brain constructs the rest.
uh…ok.[/quote]
Read some books on neuroscience and memory. Fascinating stuff. Of course, if someone wants to believe in ghosts or whatever, have at it. Just don’t expect others to believe it, too.
No. thats the face of a spirit we “spoke” to in Bethlehem, PA earlier this year. We have a video of it as well but I am not going to upload it. I have some other pics of it as it changed mood, and ill be happy to share them.
As you were.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
tribunaldude wrote:
Not a fake. Believe what you will.
… A light of some kind. Humans are designed to see faces, and anything that even looks remotely like a face will get recognized very quickly. Go outside and look at some Stucco on the side of your house and just look at how many faces show up. Is this creepy? No, its perfectly normal.[/quote]
[quote]tribunaldude wrote:
No. thats the face of a spirit we “spoke” to in Bethlehem, PA earlier this year. We have a video of it as well but I am not going to upload it. I have some other pics of it as it changed mood, and ill be happy to share them.
As you were.
Lonnie123 wrote:
tribunaldude wrote:
Not a fake. Believe what you will.
… A light of some kind. Humans are designed to see faces, and anything that even looks remotely like a face will get recognized very quickly. Go outside and look at some Stucco on the side of your house and just look at how many faces show up. Is this creepy? No, its perfectly normal.
As I asked before, why dont skeptics ever get abducted…?[/quote]
I’m not supporting or discrediting that alien abductions exist, but, if a skeptic were to be abducted or see a ghost or have some other paranormal event happen, that person would cease to be a skeptic, would they not? Hence the reason you can’t find a skeptic who has been abducted. If someone were to claim having been a skeptic, the other skeptics would be skeptical about his professed skepticism.
Another question along these lines, since the discussion of the laws of physics has come up, why can’t the laws of physics be violated, since the laws as we know them have been codified by humans? Perhaps we just haven’t discovered that a given law has a loophole.
After all, scientific laws are recorded after a hypothesis has been repeatedly tested in various ways with the actual result always falling within the hypothesized range of values. Is there not a possibility that there is another way of testing that was not considered due to an incomplete understanding of the possibilities of the universe?
I think open-mindedness is a positive trait, even among scientists. Cynicism and skepticism can also be positive traits. The fool is the person that is over-reliant on any of the three.
[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
Is there not a possibility that there is another way of testing that was not considered due to an incomplete understanding of the possibilities of the universe?[/quote]
What might this other way of testing be and how do we verify its results?
For my part, I believe in ghosts, having had a few experiences myself, but I am not sure what they are. I do not necessarily agree that they are disembodied spirits of those who have passed on. They may be spirits, I am just not sure.
I have read a few things by Colin Wilson who writes intelligently on the subject.
In any case, I found the below story to be interesting. It appears in Wilson’s book, “Mysteries”. Obviously, it could all be explained away with the word, “coincidences”. Enjoy:
"The Porsche racing car in which film star James Dean was killed in 1955 seemed to have the power to cause accidents even when dismantled. Bought by a garage owner, George Barris, it slipped as it was being unloaded from the breakdown truck and broke both a mechanic’s legs. The engine was sold to a doctor, who was killed when the car in which it was placed went out of control during a race.
Oddly enough, another car in the race contained the drive shaft from the Porsche; its driver was injured when the car turned over. The battered shell of Dean’s car was used in a display on Highway Safety; in Sacramento it fell off its mounting and broke a teenager’s hip. Weeks later, en route to another display, the the truck carrying it was involved in an accident; the driver was thrown out and killed by Dean’s car as it rolled off the back.
A racing driver who bought the heavy duty tires from the car was almost killed when both tires exploded simultaneously, causing the car to swerve off the road. In Oregon, the truck carrying the car slipped its handbrake and crashed into a store. In New Orleans in 1959, it broke into eleven pieces while on stationary supports. Finally, in 1960, it finished when being sent by train back to Los Angeles…"
[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
tribunaldude wrote:
Not a fake. Believe what you will.
it looks like this.
DB
[/quote]
Lmao!
[quote]tribunaldude wrote:
No. thats the face of a spirit we “spoke” to in Bethlehem, PA earlier this year…I have some other pics of it as it changed mood…
[/quote]
It went from giggly to cranky, saying “I’m hungry” and “I need to go potty”
[quote]RhunDraco wrote:
dollarbill44 wrote:
Is there not a possibility that there is another way of testing that was not considered due to an incomplete understanding of the possibilities of the universe?
What might this other way of testing be and how do we verify its results?[/quote]
My point was that humans might not have a complete enough understanding yet to know what other testing methods may exist. That is where open-mindedness comes into play.
I believe you said something along the lines of open-mindedness being stupid when it means believing in something that goes against the laws of physics (my apologies if this wasn’t you or wasn’t exactly what you said).
One of my points was that we may not have a great enough understanding to entirely dismiss the idea that our laws are incomplete.
Maybe we’re right and there are no other means of testing and our laws are truly the laws of the universe. I just don’t think we’ve got it all covered as much as we think we have.
