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Can All Weird Experiences Be Explained?
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I'm generally sceptical of the paranormal and view with suspicion the claims of psychics, spiritualists and the like. However I personally know many people who have had some very strange and inexplicable occurences.
Can ALL strange experiences really be explained by science, psychology etc?
Can ALL strange experiences really be explained by science, psychology etc?
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naomi, that's my point!
if they look like a person, and you don't know its a ghost - then you haven't really seen one have you?
you may technically have 'seen' a realistic one, but as you don't know you cant really count it as seeing one can you?
and i know that most apparitions don't appear just like solid real people because i have read enough books and seen enough documentaries to support that.
but if you want to split hairs, my point was centred around ghostly apparitions appearing in the middle of a chemists or something - which i thought was clear from my post - so again, if i must clarify everything, i say it again -
why don't you ever see [the ghostly looking] ghosts in public?
if they look like a person, and you don't know its a ghost - then you haven't really seen one have you?
you may technically have 'seen' a realistic one, but as you don't know you cant really count it as seeing one can you?
and i know that most apparitions don't appear just like solid real people because i have read enough books and seen enough documentaries to support that.
but if you want to split hairs, my point was centred around ghostly apparitions appearing in the middle of a chemists or something - which i thought was clear from my post - so again, if i must clarify everything, i say it again -
why don't you ever see [the ghostly looking] ghosts in public?
joko -I think the point maybe that not everyone sees 'unexplained' things therefore how do you know that there is not an apparition of Mr Selfridge for example, floating down ladieswear -someone might be seeing something but others not because they are not sensitive -and if you saw a ghost in Tesco would you tell everyone? - I doubt it for fear of being taken away by men in white coats ;-) .
naomi, if there are such things as phenomena that we can't yet test (and I doubt it) is it not the most remarkable co-incidence that those that we can test turn out to have no validity?
Who is it who is playing tricks on us by saying "Let them test all those things that they'll find invalid but we'll make sure that they can't test the real ones"?
I don't buy it.
Who is it who is playing tricks on us by saying "Let them test all those things that they'll find invalid but we'll make sure that they can't test the real ones"?
I don't buy it.
Joko, It’s not really a question of recognising ‘ghosts’ that may appear in public places – but more of them turning up where they shouldn’t - like Magsmay’s man standing in the field admiring the view. He shouldn’t have been there – which is what makes his presence questionable.
Chakka,//if there are such things as phenomena that we can't yet test (and I doubt it)…//
Do you really doubt it? That would assume that we are aware of everything there is to be aware of – and I seriously doubt we are.
//I don't buy it.//
I know you don’t – but that implies that every one of the millions of people who report such experiences must be mistaken, deluded, or lying – and they’re not.
Chakka,//if there are such things as phenomena that we can't yet test (and I doubt it)…//
Do you really doubt it? That would assume that we are aware of everything there is to be aware of – and I seriously doubt we are.
//I don't buy it.//
I know you don’t – but that implies that every one of the millions of people who report such experiences must be mistaken, deluded, or lying – and they’re not.
mags - people often claim to have seen ghosts, and they are more likely to say it if they think others may have seen it too, but they rarely say it was in public...
and my point is, i did not say there are no ghosts in public places at all - how could i know that? i couldn't possibly know that, so i would not say it - but i'm saying that people rarely claim to see them in public - you very very rarely hear stories of 6 people spotting something in sainburys, do you?
most stories are at home, in the dark, while the person was alone and asleep....and that why most stories are either lies or mistakes - because they conveniently cannot be verified - its just words.
my point is, they are not unexplained sightings - if no-one sees them!
if no-one sees anything - then it doesn't count!
naomi - you are missing my point
if i saw a man in field my first thought would not be he must be a ghost.... unless he suddenly disappeared -ie, did something 'ghostly'
i accept that if you saw a figure in your room, in the dark, your thoughts would likely be 'intruder or ghost', but unless that figure does something ghostly then its probably not a ghost - disappearing, walking through walls etc - is a ghostly act... if the figure opens the door and walks down stairs then its more likely a person.
if you see a solid person walk past you in a shop and have no reason to even look twice at them, then you cannot claim to have seen a ghost - even if it was one... because there is no reason whatsoever to think it is one ... and you really don't know for sure ... someone being in an unexpected place does not constitute a haunting
and my point is, i did not say there are no ghosts in public places at all - how could i know that? i couldn't possibly know that, so i would not say it - but i'm saying that people rarely claim to see them in public - you very very rarely hear stories of 6 people spotting something in sainburys, do you?
most stories are at home, in the dark, while the person was alone and asleep....and that why most stories are either lies or mistakes - because they conveniently cannot be verified - its just words.
my point is, they are not unexplained sightings - if no-one sees them!
if no-one sees anything - then it doesn't count!
naomi - you are missing my point
if i saw a man in field my first thought would not be he must be a ghost.... unless he suddenly disappeared -ie, did something 'ghostly'
i accept that if you saw a figure in your room, in the dark, your thoughts would likely be 'intruder or ghost', but unless that figure does something ghostly then its probably not a ghost - disappearing, walking through walls etc - is a ghostly act... if the figure opens the door and walks down stairs then its more likely a person.
if you see a solid person walk past you in a shop and have no reason to even look twice at them, then you cannot claim to have seen a ghost - even if it was one... because there is no reason whatsoever to think it is one ... and you really don't know for sure ... someone being in an unexpected place does not constitute a haunting
Joko, I’m not missing your point, really I'm not. I see what you’re saying, but there doesn’t seem to be much point in talking about potential ‘ghosts’ that no one recognises as ‘ghosts’.
//i accept that if you saw a figure in your room, in the dark, your thoughts would likely be 'intruder or ghost', but unless that figure does something ghostly then its probably not a ghost//
If I saw a figure in my room in the dark my first thought would be ‘intruder’. However, if I saw a figure I recognised in my room in daylight who wasn’t supposed to be there because they were long dead, I wouldn’t think intruder – I would think ‘ghost’ – which I did - and the figure didn’t do anything remotely ‘ghostly’ like disappearing through walls to give me a clue. Likewise the children’s marbles that three people witnessed whizzing across the room at a height of about 6 feet – again in daylight. Since all present were family members and adult, it didn’t occur to any of us that an intruder may have lobbed them.
//i accept that if you saw a figure in your room, in the dark, your thoughts would likely be 'intruder or ghost', but unless that figure does something ghostly then its probably not a ghost//
If I saw a figure in my room in the dark my first thought would be ‘intruder’. However, if I saw a figure I recognised in my room in daylight who wasn’t supposed to be there because they were long dead, I wouldn’t think intruder – I would think ‘ghost’ – which I did - and the figure didn’t do anything remotely ‘ghostly’ like disappearing through walls to give me a clue. Likewise the children’s marbles that three people witnessed whizzing across the room at a height of about 6 feet – again in daylight. Since all present were family members and adult, it didn’t occur to any of us that an intruder may have lobbed them.
In the end the problem surely is that we are all slaves to our brains which can do all sorts of weird things to us, such as making us see things that aren't there or hear things and so on. As long as the brain is badly understood and can pull these stupid tricks on us I think that's what all of these sortsa of things really are. The fact that these stories almost always happen when people aren't really paying attention (how many ghosts have been found when you were looking for them?) is enough to convince me that it's just our brains playing tricks on us. Until someone provides hard evidence to the contrary there's no reason to believe in some sort of spiritual world.
Again, that is not to say that people who have these experiences are deluded, mistaken, or lying. They saw what they saw -- though some people do indeed lie many others are telling the truth -- but I think it's safe to say at the moment that what they think they saw was not a ghost or a spiritual effect, but in their heads. And that's natural and not at all anyone's fault.
Again, that is not to say that people who have these experiences are deluded, mistaken, or lying. They saw what they saw -- though some people do indeed lie many others are telling the truth -- but I think it's safe to say at the moment that what they think they saw was not a ghost or a spiritual effect, but in their heads. And that's natural and not at all anyone's fault.
Jim, //I think it's safe to say at the moment that what they think they saw was not a ghost or a spiritual effect, but in their heads.//
In that case, contrary to your previous statement that //that is not to say that people who have these experiences are deluded, mistaken, or lying.//, in your opinion they are certainly deluded.
In that case, contrary to your previous statement that //that is not to say that people who have these experiences are deluded, mistaken, or lying.//, in your opinion they are certainly deluded.
joko -to put my 'man in the field' experience into perspective: yes -if I saw a man full on in a field I would think hiker/ trespasser perhaps - this was a man dressed in a specific way as to seem 'not normal' , in my peripheral view, who disappeared when I turned to get a better look -he was only around 25 yards from me leaning on what could have been a spade or stick. I immediately went over to see who it was and there was no one -and in such a situation that they could not have disappeared into a building. I can't explain this nor other experiences I have had, and as a professional psychologist would hope I am grounded enough to not get carried away and embellish the facts to make them more 'spooky'. I would love to be able to give these and other phenomena a scientific and rational explanation. Some would say its the mind playing tricks - wanting to see or hear from deceased loved ones -not in my case as each incident has been with people I had never met in person or even spoken to. I've tried for 10 years to 'contact' my deceased grandmother and father to no avail - that is why I do not think these things can be seen or heard to order -though psychics would argue that is something you can learn to do. 150 years ago people thought dream interpretation was sorcerous, now its used in main stream psychology thanks to Freud and Jung. A closed mind is a dying mind - Edna Ferber
naomi- to say that I doubt that there are things that we cannot test is not the same as saying that we know everything - I would be so daft as to say that.
I have not yet heard of any unnatural phenomenon that can't be tested.
As for all those reports, they are usually anecdotes and (as I have said before) anecdotes are worthless. To tell someone a tale and then say "How do you explain that?" is pointless because the person being asked for an explanation doesn't know all the facts.
Here's an example from real life - a true one.
One day I saw my wife sitting in the driving seat of her car outside the house when I knew full well that she was not actually there. This was not a delusion because I took a photo of the car with 'her' in it.
Given that as an anecdote, no-one could explain it. Fortunately
I have not yet heard of any unnatural phenomenon that can't be tested.
As for all those reports, they are usually anecdotes and (as I have said before) anecdotes are worthless. To tell someone a tale and then say "How do you explain that?" is pointless because the person being asked for an explanation doesn't know all the facts.
Here's an example from real life - a true one.
One day I saw my wife sitting in the driving seat of her car outside the house when I knew full well that she was not actually there. This was not a delusion because I took a photo of the car with 'her' in it.
Given that as an anecdote, no-one could explain it. Fortunately
naomi- to say that I doubt that there are things that we cannot test is not the same as saying that we know everything - I would be so daft as to say that.
I have not yet heard of any unnatural phenomenon that can't be tested.
As for all those reports, they are usually anecdotes and (as I have said before) anecdotes are worthless. To tell someone a tale in all good faith and then say "How do you explain that?" is pointless because the person being asked for an explanation doesn't know all the facts.
Here's an example from real life - a true one.
One day I saw my wife sitting in the driving seat of her car outside the house when I knew full well that she was somewhere else. This was not a delusion because I took a photo of the car with 'her' in it.
Fortunately, I happen to know the rest of the facts. I was looking out of our living-room window at night while my wife was on the sofa behind me. Uncannily her reflection in the window fitted exactly - in size, position and attitude - with what I would have seen had she actually been in her car.
It is when the person being asked for an explanation does not know all the facts that things become inexplicable.
I have not yet heard of any unnatural phenomenon that can't be tested.
As for all those reports, they are usually anecdotes and (as I have said before) anecdotes are worthless. To tell someone a tale in all good faith and then say "How do you explain that?" is pointless because the person being asked for an explanation doesn't know all the facts.
Here's an example from real life - a true one.
One day I saw my wife sitting in the driving seat of her car outside the house when I knew full well that she was somewhere else. This was not a delusion because I took a photo of the car with 'her' in it.
Fortunately, I happen to know the rest of the facts. I was looking out of our living-room window at night while my wife was on the sofa behind me. Uncannily her reflection in the window fitted exactly - in size, position and attitude - with what I would have seen had she actually been in her car.
It is when the person being asked for an explanation does not know all the facts that things become inexplicable.
If you start to ask the 'why' question and not just the 'how', you will quickly realise that everywhere you look you are surrounded by, and are participating in, 'weird', beautiful and inexplicable phenomena. You damage your hand and have a cut, bruised and bleeding wound, 'how' it heals is by disinfecting and adding a dressing. Biologists can explain how the bleeding stops, and how with time the bruising goes and your hand returns to normal. But why? Is there any need to search further for the 'paranormal' when the normal is itself is so inexplicable?
Jim I did see a ghost. She was not in my head, she was standing in a doorway. Before seeing this there was a kind of swishing noise of someone coming up the stairs. Not my house. Next day a relative of a poor woman in the last few days of her life downstairs described to me who I might have seen. This description was spot on of what I saw. I had not told anyone at that point, and just said that I thought there was someone else in the house the previous night.
Apparition matched description of the long dead mother of the dying woman.
I was not related to any of this family.
This was not imagination or fantasy. It happened.
Apparition matched description of the long dead mother of the dying woman.
I was not related to any of this family.
This was not imagination or fantasy. It happened.
The point about supernatural phenomenons, weird experiences, that sort of thing, is that they are reported events - they have interacted with our world in some way - because someone, or several people have witnessed it - they have seen it, or smelt it, or felt it, or recalled it, or have had seemingly impossible facts about them related back to them by a stranger.
I would quibble a little with chakka, I think, who said anecdote was worthless - It has some indicative value, but as evidence it ranks at the lowest tier of what you might rationally require to conclude something is true.
So we can surely test for them - is the phenomenon repeatable? Does it affect more than one individual? How long does it last for? How frequently does it occur?
So when we talk about the failure of such phenomenon to manifest under scientifically controlled circumstances, or when spiritualists, astrologers, mystics, telepathists etc all fail to demonstrate any kind of truth or veracity above what might be expected for random chance, you really do have to question whether there is any kind of supernatural interaction with the real world at all.
So, whilst we might indeed be ignorant of some "energy level" or "other dimension" or the "afterlife", whilst we can think of no plausible way in which say telepathy might work, for instance, that does not invalidate the process by which you measure for such things.
We interact with the world via our senses; the brain makes up a lot of stuff. Our recall of actual events is incredibly poor - just read eye witness statements about the same event for instance, to see just how conflicted people can be. Our perception can be poor; Famous experiment told observers to watch a video of some basketball players in training, and count the number of passes and baskets carefully; they would be tested afterwards. The test question asked them was how many people saw the gorilla? Most said they had not seen one. But when the video was replayed, it was very evident that someone in a gorilla costume walked through the basketball players :)
With such easily influenced senses, with our poor recall of actual events, I do not find it surprising that people can become convinced they have seen or experienced something weird or supernatural....
I would quibble a little with chakka, I think, who said anecdote was worthless - It has some indicative value, but as evidence it ranks at the lowest tier of what you might rationally require to conclude something is true.
So we can surely test for them - is the phenomenon repeatable? Does it affect more than one individual? How long does it last for? How frequently does it occur?
So when we talk about the failure of such phenomenon to manifest under scientifically controlled circumstances, or when spiritualists, astrologers, mystics, telepathists etc all fail to demonstrate any kind of truth or veracity above what might be expected for random chance, you really do have to question whether there is any kind of supernatural interaction with the real world at all.
So, whilst we might indeed be ignorant of some "energy level" or "other dimension" or the "afterlife", whilst we can think of no plausible way in which say telepathy might work, for instance, that does not invalidate the process by which you measure for such things.
We interact with the world via our senses; the brain makes up a lot of stuff. Our recall of actual events is incredibly poor - just read eye witness statements about the same event for instance, to see just how conflicted people can be. Our perception can be poor; Famous experiment told observers to watch a video of some basketball players in training, and count the number of passes and baskets carefully; they would be tested afterwards. The test question asked them was how many people saw the gorilla? Most said they had not seen one. But when the video was replayed, it was very evident that someone in a gorilla costume walked through the basketball players :)
With such easily influenced senses, with our poor recall of actual events, I do not find it surprising that people can become convinced they have seen or experienced something weird or supernatural....
Seeing is believing. It is difficult to convince someone something exist when they've not actually witnessed it them self.
About 27 years ago I've been told about things which I'd go through in life. I hadn't given thought to the day I'd spoken to the spiritualist in many, many years. Not long ago those predictions came to pass; I'm experiencing those predictions and it is scary.
About 27 years ago I've been told about things which I'd go through in life. I hadn't given thought to the day I'd spoken to the spiritualist in many, many years. Not long ago those predictions came to pass; I'm experiencing those predictions and it is scary.
The point I am trying to make is that "seeing is believing" is actually quite a poor idiom really. Its original meaning was to express the idea that only physical or concrete evidence should be considered convincing proof of something - but we now know that what we see all to often is false, and not only through digital means, such as airbrushing or photo-shopping.
The same holds true for those stories that people remember - that they are convinced actually happened - but again, very often we find peoples memories are corrupted, or coloured by the desire or belief of the person remembering the event.
The same holds true for those stories that people remember - that they are convinced actually happened - but again, very often we find peoples memories are corrupted, or coloured by the desire or belief of the person remembering the event.
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