do you believe in EVP? spirits / ghost recordings?

[Section10]

To settle for less would require us to abandon centuries of careful observation and sophisticated experimentation that have resulted in a greater increase in human knowledge & understanding of the world in the last 500 years than in the previous ten thousand.
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I don't think we have an either/or situation here. To admit the possibility of the supernatural or paranormal doesn't necessarily mean we have to throw all scientific knowledge out the window.
Personally, I'm convinced that knowledge does not necessarily mean understanding. If we understand the world so much how come we've made such a mess of it? Science has taken us down a path of "mechanical" awareness of how things work, but our understanding of what they are is sorely lacking. I may know all the workings of the human body and all the medical and biological processes regarding it, but it doesn't mean I'm capable of knowing another human until I meet one and spend time with him. I wonder sometimes if in the last 500 years we've lost more than we've gained.

 

[Feraud]

I wonder sometimes if in the last 500 years we've lost more than we've gained.

I have absolutely no doubt we have gained rather than lost in terms of emotional and physical understanding of our world and ourselves. What physical, emotional, or technological advantage did Man in 1506 have over us today??

I will start the list at our current understanding of the emotional mind and disease. We now accept people can have emotional problems that will not get them burned at a stake for being "possessed". We have also gained the knowledge that diseases are not "punishment" for some alleged transgression against a higher power.

Anyone else care to add to this list?

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

No, I don't think I believe. But, I must uncosciously believe a little, for I do get spooked by said recordings. But, "Nightmare on Elm Street" scared me when it first came out, so causing me to fret over the super-natural is all too easy. No, I don't believe.

 

[Feraud]

But, "Nightmare on Elm Street" scared me when it first came out, so causing me to fret over the super-natural is all too easy.

I think that movie scared us all when it came out!

Not to stray too off topic but does anyone think we like to be scared by the unknown. Thrilling movies, "real" haunted houses, Bigfoot, U.F.O.s, are extremely popular today. Throw extreme sports into that group too..

I would guess the concept of being scared and conquering(more important than the fear itself) fear is very necessary for humans.

 

[Section10]

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not advocating moving us all back to 1506 and I'm not anti-science and I even have grave doubts about EVP. I think there are places that science simply cannot take us and to deny the reality of those places on those grounds is presumptuous. My post was referring to something else.
Many people on this forum have already sensed the poverty of society's perceptions and attitudes. How many people can step out their front door and see what is really out there? Darned few, I'm afraid. All they see is what the media tells them and their biggest concern is what color fingernail polish to wear or if their tie is straight. We are largely out of touch with the planet, with life and with each other. People go months without even touching the grass or seeing the stars. That is an artificial life and nothing good can come of it. Society is sick. Drug addiction, pornography, violence (we have become extremely adept at killing each other), arbitrary values, depression. These are all symptoms of frustration and unhappiness that science will never relieve. Aids: The epidemic that should never even have existed.
We may know more, but we certainly don't know what to do with our knowledge.

And you'd be surprised at how many people today believe that their illness is punishment for transgressing a higher power. And in a off-handed way it may be. Not punishment exactly but if you smoke and live in a smog filled city you have a good chance of getting lung cancer. Another by-product of science and industry. Consequences of life's choices. The answer is not to do away with science and industry but to get back in touch with what is important and what is necessary. But that is not our path at this time and that is our loss.

 

[Feraud]

^
^
I Agree with that.

 

[Section10]

Thank you. (I'd use the smiley's toasting each other with beer mugs, but I don't seem to have them, but that is my sentiment).

 

[Feraud]

:cheers1: The drinks are on me!

 

[Rick Blaine]

I do...

I have absolutely no doubt we have gained rather than lost in terms of emotional and physical understanding of our world and ourselves. What physical, emotional, or technological advantage did Man in 1506 have over us today??

I will start the list at our current understanding of the emotional mind and disease. We now accept people can have emotional problems that will not get them burned at a stake for being "possessed". We have also gained the knowledge that diseases are not "punishment" for some alleged transgression against a higher power.

Anyone else care to add to this list?

Science has made our world more understandable. Less superstision has made our world more predictable. Every day you rely on testable, repeatable observation to conduct your life.
Believe me, you dont want to return to pre Enlightenment times when life was riven with superstition, but that is exactly where this line of reasoning will lead... Science is an incremental process, sometimes moving along blind alleys before the course is corrected. However imperfect the scientific method (done by imperfect human beings), it is a time-proven method in advancing our understanding of our place in this universe. And progress is made - we do know more about the universe, from viruses to distant galaxies, than we did 10, 100, or 1000 years ago.

 

[Warden]

We cannot comment on recordings, but Mrs W and I are split on the subject of ghosts.

To put it simply, she believes and I don't. We used to live in a 100+ year old house and our dog would act strange either in the front room or the front bedroom. He would stare at something in the middle of the room, growling and then slowly move his head, as if following something.

Personally I think it was the dog being nuts, but Mrs W was convinced this was a ghostee.

We were also offered a walk on part in the TV show "most haunted", this is a programme where they try to find ghosts. We were asked to spend a night in period dress with the team in a disused underground railway station, but Mrs W refused to do it.

Ho well, fame and fortune another day, I fancied being part of Mystery Inc.

Warden D

 

[Section10]

Science has made our world more understandable. Less superstision has made our world more predictable. Every day you rely on testable, repeatable observation to conduct your life.
Believe me, you dont want to return to pre Enlightenment times when life was riven with superstition, but that is exactly where this line of reasoning will lead... Science is an incremental process, sometimes moving along blind alleys before the course is corrected. However imperfect the scientific method (done by imperfect human beings), it is a time-proven method in advancing our understanding of our place in this universe. And progress is made - we do know more about the universe, from viruses to distant galaxies, than we did 10, 100, or 1000 years ago.

Sigh. I could contest nearly every sentence in this post, but I'm not going to monopolize this forum. Somebody else can do it.

 

[Twitch]

This topic gained some noteriety with the utterly poor Micjael Keaton movie White Noise. Possible I guess, stranger things have happened.[huh]

 

[Rick Blaine]

Yes, quite so...

Sigh. I could contest nearly every sentence in this post, but I'm not going to monopolize this forum. Somebody else can do it.

SIGH...
You also could have, say, your surgeon skip the scrubbing, the filtering, and the sterilization; to forgo the autoclave, the surgical gloves and masks, the sterile dressings, the clean linens, and all other antiseptic measures... Naw...Somebody else can do it

 

[Matthew]

...and I will disbelieve all of your disbelief.
I know what I have seen and experienced my own self, while fully awake and cognizant. And as I said before, why limit one's self in a universe of limitless potential? :eusa_doh:

Your post amounts to you merely making the same assertion for the second time, rather than addressing any of my points.

Just saying, "I just know," does not make it so.

Similarly, saying, "I just KNOW I saw a talking snake, you cannot tell me otherwise, I'm just gunna' believe"

...Is a testamony, and does not count as evidence or make your claims true.

The writer of "The Elegant Universe", Brian Greene, did the math, (or at least some of it) and numbers don't lie. The mathematics dictate that other dimensions must exist in space/time.

argumentum ad verecundiam

Quantum physics is not what is in question here. What is in question is your erroneous equivocation of quantum physics (lots of evidence, can be tested, verified) in regard to supernatural claims (no evidence, cannot be tested or verified).

I, and others that have experienced a variety of paranormal experiences, really have absolutely nothing to gain by sharing these experiences with those who do not or can not believe in at least the possibility of paranormal phenomena.

This is becoming tiresome... Did you even read my last long post?
I'll repeat myself:

Claiming to have seen a 6-legged dragon and actually seeing a real 6-legged dragon are two different things. Just because a crowd of fellow Catholics agree that they "miraculously" see Mother Mary in the bark of a tree - It. Does Not. Follow. that consensus makes it so.

That which is outside of our extremely limited view of this universe, and all that it contains.
Or rather I should say, we have nothing to gain except the ridicule of those who disbelieve,...but even that awful fate will never make me disbelieve what I have seen with my own eyes. lol

Your taking what is called a "Fideistic" turn. Maintaining a belief, no matter what, without regard for contrary evidence or contrary claims.

http://skepdic.com/selectiv.html

Descending into a solipcistic world of your own creative imagination may be fun and infinitely self-affirming, however, it does not produce a real world, nor a truthful one.

You state it as if it's been 4 DECADES, rather than 4 years. It is very much fresh in my young memory. I happen to have an excellent long term memory, as I can remember things from when I was merely a toddler.

Memories are deeply, deeply fallible. Even "Flasbulb Memories," are nonexistant and rather just as fallible as day-to-day memories.

Sensory experience is not "pure," - we automatically bias whatever information we process through our senses. Our biases corrupt our perceptions immediately, and our memories fade and become tainted (by various factors) over time. You might clearly see a dog in the cloud, whereas I might clearly see a rabbit in the same cloud formation. Inside your amygdala and hippocampus - four days might as well be four years.

I will take Nick Danger's side on this matter and wait for a sound scientific explanation. The hard nosed skeptics can, as they say, "stick their heads into the ground".

"Nick Danger" is not resorting to a scientific explanation merely because he apperas to me marshalling quantum physics to his explanatory aide. In fact, maintaining a supernaturalist view in light of a "scientific view" is a contradiction, it betrays a methodologically naturalistic endeavor - one that is scientific.

- Matt

 

[Matthew Dalton]

I'm a believer in ghosts, but not really in ghost recordings. That said, I'm still very open to all evidence against/for either.

 

[MissMissy]

I have no knowlege on the scientific aspect of this thread so I'll not even comment futher on that. I also have no intentions to persuade anyone so I will share my story and let everyone believe or not believe as they see fit.

Three years ago while my family and I lived in Tupelo, MS (yes the birthplace of Elvis) my husband received a call after he came home from work from his uncle whom he hadn't heard from in 10 or 15 years. My husband, Chris, was shocked to hear his uncle's voice and his uncle was shocked that Chris was shocked. His uncle received a voice mail on his cell phone from "Chris" earlier that afternoon and he said he was returning "Chris'" call and what a coincidence it was that he was going to be driving through Tupelo (he is a truck driver) later that night. Chris told him he was at work and could not have made that call, since the caller id showed our home number. I know my husband was at work all day since I am a stay at home mom. When his uncle arrived we were able to see his caller id with the date and time of course and listen to the message which sounded just like my husband only slower which is how Chris' dad sounded and he had been dead for some time before that day.[huh]

 

[Section10]

SIGH...
You also could have, say, your surgeon skip the scrubbing, the filtering, and the sterilization; to forgo the autoclave, the surgical gloves and masks, the sterile dressings, the clean linens, and all other antiseptic measures... Naw...Somebody else can do it

I don't want to get drawn into this, but I will say that regarding this issue I believed as you do. I wasn't born thinking this way and did not change until I was into my adult years. So I know both sides of this coin and I cannot imagine how the quality of my life could be improved or enhanced by going back to my old way of thinking. And believe me, it is all about the quality of my life.

 

[herringbonekid]

Matt, i'm impressed by your perseverence, thoroughness, and research.

 

[Rick Blaine]

I don't want to get drawn into this, but I will say that regarding this issue I believed as you do. I wasn't born thinking this way and did not change until I was into my adult years. So I know both sides of this coin and I cannot imagine how the quality of my life could be improved or enhanced by going back to my old way of thinking. And believe me, it is all about the quality of my life.

:cheers1: Understood.:cheers1:

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

This is becoming tiresome... Did you even read my last long post?
[\QUOTE]
Yes,...it is quite tiresome,....


Your taking what is called a "Fideistic" turn. Maintaining a belief, no matter what, without regard for contrary evidence or contrary claims.

This is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. Quite frankly, I think you are taking the very same approach here. It takes a tremendous amount of faith for me to believe many of the assumptions made by some "scientists" through out history.
Mankind's all too fallable wisdom and science can never disprove what I and many others have experienced, just as our experiences beyond the narrow window of our 5 senses, can prove those phenomena to the skeptic.
I could never hope to expand the conciousness of a skeptic, any more than a skeptic could hope to quell my wonder and curiosity at this awe-inspiring and eternal universe in which we live.
How do I explain what defies "logic" with uncoventional thought?
Believe what you will. Disbelieve what you will. And so will I.