Mod+ 238. WHY SKEPTICS ARE WRONG… ABOUT PSYCHICS & MEDIUMS

Probably because most people on this site have personal experience with unexplained phenomena.

That may be true. I as well have seen a "ghost" of a small terrier type dog in a house that I lived in as a boy. It turns out my brother has seen the same "ghost" in a separate instance. But all that means to me is that something unexplained has happened. I can't assume that because we have seen a "phantom" that this is the "spirit" of some once-living dog.

I am open-minded enough to accept that there is something that remains unexplained. Some people seem unwilling to accept that real phenomena may exist that remain unexplained.
 
That may be true. I as well have seen a "ghost" of a small terrier type dog in a house that I lived in as a boy. It turns out my brother has seen the same "ghost" in a separate instance. But all that means to me is that something unexplained has happened. I can't assume that because we have seen a "phantom" that this is the "spirit" of some once-living dog.

I am open-minded enough to accept that there is something that remains unexplained. Some people seem unwilling to accept that real phenomena may exist that remain unexplained.

I think your position is a lot more rational and sensible than our friend D. Shropshire (Dr. Shropshire ?) who is too proud to believe that spirits exist, but too scared to look.
 
That may be true. I as well have seen a "ghost" of a small terrier type dog in a house that I lived in as a boy. It turns out my brother has seen the same "ghost" in a separate instance. But all that means to me is that something unexplained has happened. I can't assume that because we have seen a "phantom" that this is the "spirit" of some once-living dog.

I am open-minded enough to accept that there is something that remains unexplained. Some people seem unwilling to accept that real phenomena may exist that remain unexplained.
While I unequivocally accept that apparitions exist in so far as anything exists, that is to say in the mind, I agree that it's difficult to create a reliable taxonomy of them. They may be different, though related phenomena. Crisis apparitions that communicate, or attempt to do so, are nearer to the conventional definition of ghosts. Other types appear more like data imprints, a cinematic projection of past events. Then there are prodigious variations like poltergeists that seem part discrete entities and part living mind. So it's possible to be convinced by a phenomenon with only the vaguest sense of a mechanism behind it.
 
While I unequivocally accept that apparitions exist in so far as anything exists, that is to say in the mind, I agree that it's difficult to create a reliable taxonomy of them. They may be different, though related phenomena. Crisis apparitions that communicate, or attempt to do so, are nearer to the conventional definition of ghosts. Other types appear more like data imprints, a cinematic projection of past events. Then there are prodigious variations like poltergeists that seem part discrete entities and part living mind. So it's possible to be convinced by a phenomenon with only the vaguest sense of a mechanism behind it.
You need more data points, more phenomenological depth, to get a better idea of what is happening. An apparition could be a ghost, an imprint, etc. Living Paranormal... Talk Radio Feed podcast claimed to have a conversation with the disembodied voice of a criminal who used black magic when he was alive at the Old South Pitsburg Hospital. I would call that evidence of an intelligence. Also evidence of an afterlife.
 
I think your position is a lot more rational and sensible than our friend D. Shropshire (Dr. Shropshire ?) who is too proud to believe that spirits exist, but too scared to look.
It's not clear why his position would be more rational, after all he's the guy who believes without evidence. Nor does it makes any sense to suggest I'm too 'proud'; I don't mind if the holy ghost, or anything else supernatural exists, and I'm certainly not scared of anything, but just asking for evidence.
 
It's not clear why his position would be more rational, after all he's the guy who believes without evidence. Nor does it makes any sense to suggest I'm too 'proud'; I don't mind if the holy ghost, or anything else supernatural exists, and I'm certainly not scared of anything, but just asking for evidence.
Given how hard it was to detect the Higgs particle, it may prove to be more difficult to detect ghosts in a way that meets scientific standards. If it turns out that ghosts really are made of quantum fields, then what sort of detection methods do you propose?
 
It was important for the scientific community to find the Higgs boson even though it will never lead to any new technology. I think it is more important to find evidence of ghosts because it proves the existence of an afterlife.
 
Given how hard it was to detect the Higgs particle, it may prove to be more difficult to detect ghosts in a way that meets scientific standards. If it turns out that ghosts really are made of quantum fields, then what sort of detection methods do you propose?

You're committing the false logic of comparing two unlike things, a particle in the natural world, with a supernatural concept(you're done that before, ignored the false logic, and did it again). Science can, and did deal with the particle, but science makes no pretence about testing the existence of ghosts or anything else supernatural.
I know of no methodology can can detect ghosts, or fairies, or leprachauns, or devils, or incubus, or succubus.
Also, you can't know that the Higgs particle will never lead to a new technology; no scientist makes that assumption, and it's irrelevant.
Nor would the proven existence of ghosts necessarily prove an afterlife. It could be there are ghosts, but NOT any aftertlife. Their's might be a separate existence, not that of dead humans.
But it's good that at least you're tacitly admitting that the existence of ghosts has never been proven.
 
Nor would the proven existence of ghosts necessarily prove an afterlife. It could be there are ghosts, but NOT any aftertlife. Their's might be a separate existence, not that of dead humans.
Now you're beginning to think instead of spouting the party line. What you've described is a possibility, there are more likely ones, but at least you've dipped a toe outside the shallow reductionist pool. There's a disparity between the hundreds of thousands of reports of apparitions, and the materialists' ability to account for them. The standard response is they're all delusions or hoaxes, but that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, as sightings occur to believers and non-believers, the imaginative and the imaginatively impaired. Some are highly detailed and communicative, others are fleeting, some are vindictive. We're dealing with a cross-cultural phenomenon with a long history for which anecdote is simply away of avoiding the evidence.
 
Now you're beginning to think instead of spouting the party line. What you've described is a possibility, there are more likely ones, but at least you've dipped a toe outside the shallow reductionist pool. There's a disparity between the hundreds of thousands of reports of apparitions, and the materialists' ability to account for them. The standard response is they're all delusions or hoaxes, but that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, as sightings occur to believers and non-believers, the imaginative and the imaginatively impaired. Some are highly detailed and communicative, others are fleeting, some are vindictive. We're dealing with a cross-cultural phenomenon with a long history for which anecdote is simply away of avoiding the evidence.

What do you mean 'beginning to think'? I am a free-thinking philosopher with no party line. No 'materialist' has to account for any of those anecdotes, as you say, so there is no disparity. All anyone has to do is prove them(any of the claims/reports) and you have shown no evidence, but only talk about it.
 
? I am a free-thinking philosopher with no party line. No 'materialist' has to account for any of those anecdotes, as you say, so there is no disparity. All anyone has to do is prove them(any of the claims/reports) and you have shown no evidence, but only talk about it.

I am always cautious about people who call themselves free thinkers, because generally I find them to be the complete opposite.

? All anyone has to do is prove them(any of the claims/reports) and you have shown no evidence, but only talk about it.

I, have linked you to a portion of the wide body of literature regarding positive evidence psi, quite a bit published in mainstream journals. It is now up to you to actually engage with it.
 
No 'materialist' has to account for any of those anecdotes, as you say, so there is no disparity.
Let's go back a little. What do you believe consciousness consists of? How does consciousness determine what is correct? What is the difference between what consciousness determines as correct and incorrect?

You do realise that pronouncing yourself a free thinker will gain you absolutely no traction on this forum? Free thinking is a synonym for atheist materialism, so you're going to have to argue your corner from that position, and do better than 'I'm not convinced'. Nobody here will try to sell you anything, they will spot any weakness in your position, so be prepared to do your homework.
 
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Any of the lit on psi and ghosts, etc. does not constitute evidence, except by those who already believe in it, so it's just confirmation bias.

Why are you even here?

On this forum we treat parapsychologists as actual researchers whom are doing work, which is only invalidated objectively as expected of any other branch of research. If you aren't willing to say more than a one-line throwaway that one-to-two-hundred years of research is "confirmation bias", you really aren't welcome.

I think you would be more suited for the average skeptic blog.
 
What do you mean ''go back'', I thought we were talking about ghosts? We must have different definitions of 'free thinker', for me it's a guy who thinks from first principles, not by any dogma, not looking for confirmation bias. If you are not a free thinker, how do you self-identifiy? For me an atheist is a guy who doesn't believe in any of the 8million+ gods posited by humans, and a materialist is a guy who accepts that matter exists, like in the periodic table of elements.
I can see you might accept some of the gods, but don't you believe that matter exists?
Consciousness? In another area I stated that sometimes I'm conscious and sometimes not, and that sometimes I can alter my counsciousness by getting drunk. Being conscious does not ''determine what is correct'', unless I misunderstand your meaning. For example if I want to find out if it is correct that a body accelerates at a speed of 32 feet per second, per second, it's not clear to me how consciousness would have anything to do with it, except for the fact that I would have to be conscious to look it up, and not asleep.
 
Sure, and a guy claimed he could guarantee that ghosts exist, and that he's even met, or talked to the hold ghost. So all I did was to ask him what methodology he used to determine that. He admitted he couldn't use the scientific method, and asked how I would prove it. I just answered that I knew of no way of proving it, and admitted that the scientific method doesn't deal with the supernatural. I also asked him how he would prove to, or convince even other christians that the holy ghost exists, because not all of them accept that. No answer so far.

Not relevant to what I said, or even your claim that every piece of parapsychology research (the stuff with designed experiments, null hypotheses, peer review with other parapsychologists and back-and-forth rebuttals with skeptics to fix flaws, not the "anecdote" stuff you love) is all bogus.
 
What do you mean ''go back'', I thought we were talking about ghosts? We must have different definitions of 'free thinker', for me it's a guy who thinks from first principles, not by any dogma, not looking for confirmation bias. If you are not a free thinker, how do you self-identifiy? For me an atheist is a guy who doesn't believe in any of the 8million+ gods posited by humans, and a materialist is a guy who accepts that matter exists, like in the periodic table of elements.
I can see you might accept some of the gods, but don't you believe that matter exists?
Consciousness? In another area I stated that sometimes I'm conscious and sometimes not, and that sometimes I can alter my counsciousness by getting drunk. Being conscious does not ''determine what is correct'', unless I misunderstand your meaning. For example if I want to find out if it is correct that a body accelerates at a speed of 32 feet per second, per second, it's not clear to me how consciousness would have anything to do with it, except for the fact that I would have to be conscious to look it up, and not asleep.
What is consciousness? Serious question BTW.

Free Thinking, or free-thinking is a term exclusively associated with secular humanism, the morality branch of skeptical materialism.
 
Not relevant to what I said, or even your claim that every piece of parapsychology research (the stuff with designed experiments, null hypotheses, peer review with other parapsychologists and back-and-forth rebuttals with skeptics to fix flaws, not the "anecdote" stuff you love) is all bogus.

Then you changed the subject from ghosts to general psi. Let's finish the ghosts thread first.
What is consciousness? Serious question BTW.

Free Thinking, or free-thinking is a term exclusively associated with secular humanism, the morality branch of skeptical materialism.
What is consciousness? Serious question BTW.

Free Thinking, or free-thinking is a term exclusively associated with secular humanism, the morality branch of skeptical materialism.

For me it's the mental state of being awake instead of say asleep, or knocked out by a drug or blunt trauma, or drunk or stoned. I still don't see anything about what it has to do with ''correct'', in any way.
There used to even be a good old fashioned test for people who couldn't even tell if they were conscious or not, and it was to pinch themselves. If it hurt, it means you're conscious.
 
For me it's the mental state of being awake instead of say asleep, or knocked out by a drug or blunt trauma, or drunk or stoned. I still don't see anything about what it has to do with ''correct'', in any way.
There used to even be a good old fashioned test for people who couldn't even tell if they were conscious or not, and it was to pinch themselves. If it hurt, it means you're conscious.
I'm asking what it is, not what it feels like. Consciousness isn't called the hard problem for nothing. Materialists generally believe the universe ticks on with them as passive observers, but if that's true, they need to show what the mechanisms they process such information by are. Currently, it's an article of faith in a wider polemic, but that isn't science.The double slit experiment suggests light may behave like a wave and a particle, depending whether or not it's being observed. If that's the case, and it appears to be so, where does that leave the passive role of the conscious mind?

There's lots of data that suggests mind may be not only non-passive, but non-local too. If so your ghosts, holy and otherwise, take on a whole new range of possibilities.
 
What you call positive evidence was that list by Dean Radin, wasn't it? Any of the lit on psi and ghosts, etc. does not constitute evidence, except by those who already believe in it, so it's just confirmation bias. It's ''inconsistent, irreproducable, and fails to meed accepted scientific standards". Those who are trying to prove that the holy ghost exists, can't even convince other christians, muchless any free-thinker.
So all you've got is bogus studies, and anecdotes. But if you find something accepted by say the Nobel Prize committee, MIT, the Smithsonian, the Japanese Academy of Sciences, then let me know, and I'll check it out.

Dean Radin spent years running experiments and did not at first believe in it. Second of all, many of journals from that link are in mainstream journals, Psychological Bulletin for example is just one, Physics Essays and Frontiers in are others. Moreover, like so many self described free-thinkers you happily regurgitate the usual talking points that have been used hundreds of times and coined by other people, and more notably, you also move the goal posts. First you say there's no positive evidence, then when I show you some, you call it conformation bias and say that it has be accepted by the Nobel Prize committee before you'll look at it. So it's a catch 22.

As an addendum, I'd like to add that the parapsychological association is a member of the AAAS. Clearly their work is good enough to warrant their membership.
 
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