do you believe in EVP? spirits / ghost recordings?

[Rick Blaine]

It takes a tremendous amount of faith for me to believe many of the assumptions made by some "scientists" through out history.

On the contrary, it takes no faith whatsoever. The rational place confidence in research and sound reason, not faith, because they are justified in this by more than ample supporting evidence. Faith is required only when supporting evidence is lacking or, worse yet, when counter evidence is mounting.

Mankind's all too fallable wisdom and science can never disprove what I and many others have experienced...

They would (and do) seek quite the opposite, to prove, affirm and support or uphold the validity of such experience. That is what science does, by by presentation of evidence.
Evidence that is reasonable, replicable and that provides theoretical explanation of phenomena. A phenomena that is exactly the sort of occurrence (or circumstance, or fact) perceptible by the senses, as you are describing.

...could hope to quell my wonder and curiosity at this awe-inspiring and eternal universe in which we live.

There is an appetite for wonder, and isn't true science well qualified to feed it?

It's often said that people 'need' something more in their lives than just the material world. There is a gap that must be filled. People need to feel a sense of purpose. Well, not a BAD purpose would be to find out what is already here, in the material world, before concluding that you need something more. How much more do you want? Just study what is, and you'll find that it already is far more uplifting than anything you could imagine needing.

You don't have to be a scientist -- you don't have to play the bunsen burner -- in order to understand enough science to overtake your imagined need and fill that fancied gap. Science needs to be released from the lab into the culture.

Richard Dawkins

 

[jamespowers]

Gentlemen, you are arguing a question that is parallell to faith. Either you believe it or you don't neither is it provable or disprovable based on what we have available to us. It is a circular argument and I am beginning to see the circles. In logic we say that you cannot prove or disprove an absolute. You are arguing about an absolute and have just about reached them end of the possible---I am right, No, I am right argument. The premise of the thread is do you believe or not. It didn't say you had to write ten treatises on the subject with footnotes.
Just say yes or no and tell your stories. :eusa_doh: [huh]

Regards,

J

 

[TommySalieri]

lol lol lol lol

 

[SGB]

No.

SGB

 

[pablocham]

Matthew is right. Nobody has ever produced repeatable evidence for ghosts. Hume once asked whether it was easier to believe that the laws of physics were occasionally and arbitrarily suspended or to believe that human beings make mistakes. I think, along with him, that the latter is far more likely. Personally I make mistakes all the time--I forget things, I remember things that didn't happen, or I completely misremember something that did happen. As of yet I have never seen the laws of physics be suspended nor have I heard an anecdotal report of one that could not be more easily explained as human error.

 

[scotrace]

I will not go into length, as I have noticed on forums, nobody reads my long explanatory posts anyway.

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh








,

 

[Section10]

The difficulty with science replacing faith is that although science can answer the questions how?, where? and when? it can never answer the question why? and why? is the most pressing and poignant question of the human race. When a child dies the parents always ask why? and Darwin's 'Origin of Species' is a cold companion on a dark and lonely night.

 

[Mr Nick]

No to EVP!

I think that there are many things we are not (yet) capable of understanding. Now we see through a glass dimly, one day we shall see clearly. I also think that some in this forum have tried awfully hard to convince others to see things their way. That becomes particularly difficult when you discount the experiences of those you are trying to convince. The plain fact is, we are not supposed to understand everything and any effort to do so is foolhardy and presumptuous. If we only "believe" things we can substantiate and prove, doesn't that negate love? I know love is real!

 

[Feraud]

Darwin's 'Origin of Species' is a cold companion on a dark and lonely night.

True. I prefer Poe.

 

[Senator Jack]

I haven't been following this thread, but I can tell you this: spout as much science and logic as you want, but if you don't believe there are such things as spirits, it's only because you haven't seen one. For a few years I lived in a 19th Century mansion. We had ghosts.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[scotrace]

There is the clear, distinct and loud voice of a small child in my house when there are no living children in it.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Really?

Is it an older house with much history?

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I have never heard any such voices, but this reminds me of a theory I once heard about. About how sound waves may linger for an indefinate time after they were first produced. We have no way of knowing for sure but anything is possible. Maybe the so-called EVPs are just lingering sound waves?

 

[Matthew]

Hmm...

Well then,

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

I appreciate your appreciation.

At least my past 3 years of training as philosophy major can "pay off" on an interent forum made for the discussion of hats. At this rate, perhaps my PhD will allow me to get into "Slashdot" or something.

It takes a tremendous amount of faith for me to believe many of the assumptions made by some "scientists" through out history.

Your committing a common fallacy of equivocation; in this case - using the word ‘faith’ as a synonym for ‘trust,’ or ‘confidence.’

This happens particularly often with the word ‘faith’ when discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of science vs. religion/intelligent design/creationism/pseudoscience/supernaturalism/etc. It is almost always as such that subsequently claiming that since the theories in science are maintained with ‘confidence,’ it is thus that scientists have ‘faith.’

Faith, in the common vernacular, seems to be used as a synonym with the word ‘confidence.’ However, in a avenue of communication where we are struggling to lay down our common terms, ‘faith’ is not he same as any synonym for ‘confidence,’ or ‘conviction.’

Having ‘faith’ is defined as maintaining a proposition for which there is no evidence: in despite of; or without reference to conflicting or contrary argument(s).

My commentary is rather superfluous, Rick Blaine nailed it on the head.

Mankind's all too fallable wisdom and science can never disprove what I and many others have experienced…

More fideism…

…just as our experiences beyond the narrow window of our 5 senses, can prove those phenomena to the skeptic.

You are right: our five senses is a rather narrow view of what actually exists. Unlike bats, or dolphins, we lack echolocation. Some species of birds navigate using magnetoception. Monotremes use electroceptive senses.

We only see a small band of the electromagnetic spectrum.
However, it does not follow that when I take my glasses off, the blurry vision I see is the “real world” and everyone else with 20/20 vision is ‘blinded’ by their perceptions. Do blind or deaf people maintain that everyone else with their fully functioning five ‘special senses’ (senses not including equilibrioception, proprioception, etc.) ‘know’ anything that is not corporeal in detection?

Anything more is heresy in empiricism, and subsequently not science.

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.

Wisdom begins in wonder, as Socrates says. It is not my means to stop you from being in awe or finding magnificence in the world.

Unfortunately, much of your ontology and cosmology is wrapped up in this ‘anything goes’ rhetoric. The universe is not ‘eternal.’ This view was much discarded in the late 1800’s, and verified empirically in 1929 by Hubble (look up "big crunch.") And, of course, I hate to burst your bubble of idealism, but the universe is not codified by your imagination. If indeed ‘anything is possible,’ as you maintain, it is not so that every imagination is actual.

“If I believe it, it is real,” is no foundation for any argument – be it ghosts, unicorns, or leprechauns.

How do I explain what defies "logic" with uncoventional thought?

Easy. It’s called ‘illogical,’ ‘unreasonable,’ ‘invalid,’ ‘unsound,’ ‘credulous...’

They would (and do) seek quite the opposite, to prove, affirm and support or uphold the validity of such experience. That is what science does, by by presentation of evidence.
Evidence that is reasonable, replicable and that provides theoretical explanation of phenomena. A phenomena that is exactly the sort of occurrence (or circumstance, or fact) perceptible by the senses, as you are describing.

Bam.

The plain fact is, we are not supposed to understand everything and any effort to do so is foolhardy and presumptuous. If we only "believe" things we can substantiate and prove, doesn't that negate love? I know love is real!

How does the thesis that evidence is necessary to substantiate claims negate love?

And, wait, who says that we are not supposed to know everything? I have only heard this from Christians speaking about Adam's eating of the apple...

There is the clear, distinct and loud voice of a small child in my house when there are no living children in it.

Very Cartesian. “Clear and distinct,” does not imply that it is. As Descartes noted 500 years ago, my dreams are often very clear and distinct – hell, I thought they were reality at the time of my dreaming them – however, they too were not real.

Did I not previously mention pareidolia, apophenia, or self-induced hallucinations?

Do not take this as an insult: Psychologically, we all regularly hullucinate and experience delusions. If you expect to hear children talking, your mind will eventually force that sensation in your mind.

I have never heard any such voices, but this reminds me of a theory I once heard about. About how sound waves may linger for an indefinate time after they were first produced. We have no way of knowing for sure but anything is possible. Maybe the so-called EVPs are just lingering sound waves?

For once, you are right about something.

Sound waves do linger for a time after they were first produced. However, they only linger for a few seconds at best. Yelling in a megaphone inside the Grand Canyon may produce an echo for a few suprising seconds, but if you are referring to voices in houses from people long since dead? Not possible. Sound waves are travel through vibrating air caused by another vibrating object. Unless the walls are perpetual motion machines, the energy produced from someone talking is dissipated into the surrounding environment almost instantaneously.

Sound waves do not "linger" for more than a few seconds. This is not evidence for "EVP."

As well, Nick, ‘theory’ does not mean “wild guess.”

A theory is a substantially high and incredibly rigorous rung in the ladder of scientific pursuit. Evolution, plate tectonics, and gravity are theories. A silly story is no ‘theory.’

And, no, your imagination may seem limitless (our imagination does have limits - we have a finite number of neurons), but that does not mean that, ontologically, “anything is possible.”

Matthew is right. Nobody has ever produced repeatable evidence for ghosts. Hume once asked whether it was easier to believe that the laws of physics were occasionally and arbitrarily suspended or to believe that human beings make mistakes. I think, along with him, that the latter is far more likely. Personally I make mistakes all the time--I forget things, I remember things that didn't happen, or I completely misremember something that did happen. As of yet I have never seen the laws of physics be suspended nor have I heard an anecdotal report of one that could not be more easily explained as human error.

I believe you are referring to Hume’s treatise On Miracles (1748), from which his argument very much applies to the supernaturalist claims in this forum:

"That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish."

Read that aloud, people.


Rick Blaine: a good Dawkins quote always warms my heart. Well said. Or, um, “well quoted.”

- Matt

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Yes!!! Mr. Know-it-All throws me a crumb!!!

And, wait, who says that we are not supposed to know everything?



For once, you are right about something.

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!
lol lol lol

So how does it feel to be right all the time?

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

All?

"Do not take this as an insult: Psychologically, we all regularly hullucinate and experience delusions. If you expect to hear children talking, your mind will eventually force that sensation in your mind."

I will take this statement from you at face value,...

 

[Senator Jack]

Again, my suggestion to the disbelievers is to just go out and stay a few nights in an occupied house. I've lived in two. The first was the mansion that was turned into a boarding house. The other boarders witnessed the same distrubances I had - the footsteps, the chills, the moving furniture, etc. The second was a three family unit. Several times at that one, I woke up feeling as though someone were sitting on my chest, and once, I KNOW, I awoke to find a heavyset man standing next to the bed. After a few of these incidents, I casually asked our friends in the neighboring unit if they thought there was anything weird about the house. The guy immediately breathed a sigh of relief - he thought he had been seeing things: doors opening and closing by themselves. lights on and off, things moving around, and since he had moved in he had the uncanny feeling that there was just some sort of presence about.

Oh, and by the way, just because self-proclaimed eggheads claim something isn't true, doesn't mean it isn't.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Section10]

Although I've had one unnerving UFO type encounter, I can honestly say I've never personally seen anything that I would call a ghost. I've heard odd house noises, but nothing to really convince me. Yet, I've talked to those who are convinced and there are no shortage of people here who claim to have encountered them. Should I believe or not? Well, the lack of my own personal experience in this is really not a determiner of whether ghosts exist or are simply someone else's imagination. How can I interpret someone else's experience? I can only do so by using criteria that I have adopted or developed and what absolute assurance is there that my criteria is valid? Do people misinterpret their own experiences? Certainly, but what does that have to do with the possibility of ghosts? Have I encountered the supernatural? I am convinced I have. If I'm wrong and there is no supernatural, so what? My life has been enriched regardless. If I'm wrong and go to my grave having lived an illusion who will know or care -- certainly not me. But lordy, lordy if I'm right, it will have made all the difference in the world.

 

["Doc" Devereux]

I've been staying out of this because, in my experience, discussion of the topic always ends up the same way: two camps who cannot see eye to eye. However on this occasion I cannot help noting that the attitudes of sneering, arrogance and condescension so frequently deployed are becoming a little too pronounced for what I like to think of as a civilised joint. To make an attempt to stay on topic, I personally am not sure about EVP because I've not really come across it in my own experience. It fits some of the models I use to examine paranormal phenomena but I'd like to have more direct information before drawing my own conclusions. As to spirits, magic and all that sort of thing: yes. My own experiences make me pretty sure that such things are possible and do happen.

Gentlemen, you are arguing a question that is parallell to faith. Either you believe it or you don't neither is it provable or disprovable based on what we have available to us. It is a circular argument and I am beginning to see the circles. In logic we say that you cannot prove or disprove an absolute. You are arguing about an absolute and have just about reached them end of the possible---I am right, No, I am right argument. The premise of the thread is do you believe or not. It didn't say you had to write ten treatises on the subject with footnotes.
Just say yes or no and tell your stories.

I couldn't agree more. There is no reason for such unpleasantness, either. As members of the lounge we are all equals, and might do well to remember that.

 

[Twitch]

The planet is teeming with strangeness past and present. Those who have experienced a strangeness personally will be more likely to believe or consider another person's different experience. Those that wish to consider possibilities out of the normal flow of experience will do so and those who not wish to entertain these things will not do so no matter how much dialogue is presented.