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TheDeath
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posted June 14, 2009 02:03 AM |
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Nice Science thread Mytical.
Oh the ignorance. Someone (not Corribus) started with the term scientific. Mind you that isn't off topic. Why is it off topic saying that this is (or isn't) scientific? It talks ABOUT this subject. It doesn't talk about science, it talks ABOUT PARANORMAL, whether it is scientific or not (or at least, that's what they were arguing about). For goodness' sake people just stop saying off topic so fast without even looking hard to realize it's not.
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Corribus
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posted June 14, 2009 03:56 AM |
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@Father
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IMO
Great, we agree!
I'm no happy we could finish this little off-topic discussion you started. Now, can we move on, please?
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Mytical
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posted June 14, 2009 06:38 AM |
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Edited by Mytical at 06:43, 14 Jun 2009.
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Hmm. Well there are currently people trying to use scientific devices to prove the exsistance of paranormal activity. I left the definitions of each open for a reason, however. Because their is no one 'supernatural' or 'paranormal' definition. Before I continue I must say that Father has a point, but so does Corribus.
For the most part, the 'paranormal' or supernatural is outside of the realm of science. At this time we have limited ability to test these or to prove any theory that one might make about either. However, that does not mean we should just stop trying to create such a thing. Things once thought impossible have been proven possible, so why not a working theory on the paranormal and supernatural. Granted it would have to be somebody 100x times smarter then me, but ...
Just dismissing something because we do not currently understand it or know how to test it is a mistake. What might have happened if Newton said "So what if a apple fell on my head, I'm going back to sleep."? Or Einstein commented "Relitivity? Utter nonsense and not worth exploring."
Just because we do not understand it, does not mean we CAN'T understand it. Corribus asked (paraphrasing) why with so many people having seen/witnessed 'etc' things that we might classify as paranormal or supernatural is there currently no proof.
First we must take away the 'fame' effect sightings. People noticed others on tv, or wherever, and thought "Hey I would like to get noticed." These sightings were never real, and the people who 'saw' them know it. They just wanted to be famous.
Next we have to take away the 'mistaken' sightings. The sightings that seemed authentic but were just a case of being mistaken about what it is that was seen. IE : Mysterious 'lights' in the sky that were experimental aircraft or whatever. 'Ghosts' that were just reflections or such.
Then we have to take away the 'conman' sightings. People who would normally fit in the first part but have taken it to another level just to get people to give them money. Fake Psychics and the such that make claims purely in order to get desperate people to give them money.
Add to that the 'mass hysteria' sightings that might come from the above. Somebody 'sees' something, then somebody else, then somebody else, etc.
Not to mention 'altered mental state' sightings. This could be alcohol, mental disease, drugs, etc.
Last on the list (though there are some I am probably forgetting) is the 'tourist attraction' sightings. Might fit in the other categories, but a lot of people are 'in' on it and it is purely meant to 'con' people to come to the area and buy overpriced things.
Now we don't only have to take away, but add. People who have seen something but remain silent for fear of ridicule or such. Or that dismiss them as something else.
Now factor in that the majority of what MIGHT be authentic sightings and such happen randomly and usually for a short period of time. All the elements stay in play for only a breif period. The chances of having a recording device a) on you, b) ready, and c) aimed in the right direction is very minimal..unless it is a hoax and staged. Not impossible mind you, but the chances are very slim. It can be argued that it is just 'bad luck' so far that has kept documentation from being around.
(This has been a rather long post, sorry about that)
People have a very strong ability to rationalize things, or outright dismiss them and put them from their mind. Some people could see a 'ghost' circus and be able to come up with an explination that is rational as to why they were the only human to see it. Unfortunately sometimes they are correct. It could be stress or whatever. So that makes it even more difficult to find authentic paranormal or supernatural occurences.
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Corribus
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posted June 14, 2009 07:19 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 07:22, 14 Jun 2009.
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@Mytical
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For the most part, the 'paranormal' or supernatural is outside of the realm of science.
Well I can argue semantics with you and point out that if you could use some sort of scientific experiment or instrument to detect the paranormal, then by definition it wouldn't be paranormal anymore. It'd be... just normal. That's why they call it supernatural; it's the whole purpose of the word. Thus there is no "for the most part". Supernatural, by definition, is outside the realm of science. But picking at words isn't really that interesting, so let's move beyond that.
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Things once thought impossible have been proven possible, so why not a working theory on the paranormal and supernatural.
Again I could pick at the word "theory" here, but you and I have been down that road before. Point of fact is that most people don't really understand what a theory is.
Aside from that, let us say that I grant you that anything is possible. The future is unscrutable. However. Science, theory, experimentation - they have a purpose, a method. We can of course suppose anything we want to, and nobody could say with certainty that our supposition is impossible. But what's the use in that? A fundamental criterium of any theory - a scientific explanation, to put it superficially, is that it must be useful. Just saying X, Y, and Z might happen is not useful. It's not wrong. But it's just not very productive, because there are no roads to take.
A useful explanation is one that can be tested. A ghost is an explanation. But there's nothing that can be tested. There's no logic, no reason to suggest that ghosts exist. It's just a supposition, nothing more. Sure, it could be true. But there are an infinite number of things that could be true. How do you determine which of those possibilities are true? You hypothesize, you test. You analyze what you know, you build a predictive model, and you test it.
It's like it you want to take your family on vacation somewhere, and you ask your wife/husband/whatever where they want to go. Well there are an infinite number of places they could suggest. But how many of those possible suggestions are useful in making a decision? Sure, they could say they want to go to the planet Xicmox IV. Is that impossible? Who knows. Maybe someone will invent some sort of new space-engine tomorrow and people will be traveling to Mars, Pluto and Xicmox IV (if it exists) the day after that. You can't say with certainty that it isn't going to happen. But you certainly can't plan for a trip like that. There's no real way to make progress. It's not a very useful idea. On the other hand, if your spouse said they wanted to go to Denver. Well that's a real starting point to going somewhere. Even the the Moon would be more reasonable than Xicmox IV. We know the moon exists, and while it would be enormously impractical to take a vacation there, at least we could devise some sort of loose strategy to at least make an attempt. But Xicmox IV? We don't even know whether it exists, so how do you even plan? Maybe some day in the future we'll discover that planet, and then we can make a plan. Then the idea at least has some use. But until then... well, it's just not scientific.
Analogously, let's say you're in a house late at night and you see a strange light, feel a hot spot, hear someone singing "I'm a little teapot" in the basement. Again, here we have a situation with an infinite number of possible explanations, one of which is that it's a ghost. Not a very useful explanation, though. How do you test it? Hmmm.. Doesn't mean that some day you won't be able to (of course, then it won't be described as supernatural). But right now, it's just more productive to deal with the smaller set of useful explanations for which a roadmap to a yes/no answer can be devised.
Only in such a way can we make - ON AVERAGE!!!! - a positive advancement towards the truth.
(Did I make that "on average" stand out enough? Because I'm anticipating the "well, science has been wrong before" response from at least half a dozen of you.)
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Mytical
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posted June 14, 2009 07:41 AM |
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A fundamental criterium of any theory - a scientific explanation, to put it superficially, is that it must be useful. Just saying X, Y, and Z might happen is not useful. It's not wrong. But it's just not very productive, because there are no roads to take.
It is my contention that it is thinking like this that we might want to avoid. After all what if people thought "Flight is a fancy, lets not even explore it, man was never meant to fly." or "Go to the moon? Impossible, lets not even try." It is in the chase for the impossible that some of our greatest achievements have been made. Now of course some of our achievements were just pure dumb luck, but that is another discussion.
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How do you determine which of those possibilities are true?
Interesting question. If I had all the answers, I would be all set. However, in the words of a very famous person. "When all other possibilities have been exhusted, then whatever remains however illogical must be the answer." On the other hand, how do you determine which possibilities can not possibly be true?
We can not make any advancement in any area at all if we do not think that advancements are not possible. So in order to advance our understanding of the paranormal and supernatural we have two ways to go. Ignore it and never even consider the possibility (and never fly or go to the moon), or find a way to make the impossible possible.
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Corribus
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posted June 14, 2009 08:07 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 16:23, 14 Jun 2009.
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I think you missed the point of my analogy, Mytical. I'm not saying that there's no worth in having vision. I'm saying that science (I don't just mean chemistry or physics or whatever - I mean, understanding reality) is best done in small, concrete increments. Why is it that Newton didn't propose the existence of lasers? He certainly could have said, "I believe there will one day be light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation!" He would have been right. But it wouldn't have been useful at the time, because there would have been no easy way to get there. Lasers would have been magic and to have proposed them then, with such a large gap between balls rolling down hills and coherent photons, just wouldn't have been productive. Proposing the lasing effect then would not have been scientific.
If you're at A, sometimes it's best to first find point B before looking for how to get to point Z. Certainly, you can speculate that Z exists, and that has some entertainment or philosophical value, but to actually GET THERE, to understand the relationship of Z to A, you have to be able to see and understand the path that connects those two points. Maybe there IS no path that connects those two points. Maybe there is. But the only way to find out is to start walking towards the points that are adjacent to where you're standing at the moment.
Basically this is what this argument sounds like to me. Cue mini-short-story.
John is in California. He wants to travel to New York. He asks Jack, his friend, how to get there.
Jack says, "Well, you get on the highway east, which will take you to Nevada, and -"
John interrupts. "I don't want to go to Nevada. I want to go to New York."
"I understand that," Jack says. "I'm trying to tell you. Now, you go to Nevada, and -"
"Why do you keep mentioning Nevada," John says, getting irritated. "I don't care about Nevada. I want to go to New York."
"Yes I get that," Jack replies, trying to keep his cool. "But you're not listening. You've got to go east, and that means going to Nevada. You can't just go to New York without-"
"Now you're making me mad!" John says, "How dare you tell me where I can and cannot go. I want to go to New York and you keep talking about Nevada. Why are you so narrowminded? It's always Nevada with you, or Colorado, or some other such place. What do you have against New York? Not good enough for you? Jerk! I am going to New York and you can't stop me."
"FINE!" Jack snarls, "Go to New York! But don't expect any help from me! I didn't ask for this kind of treatment!"
"I WILL go to New York, thank you very much, because I know I can get there! It's going to be great! Hope you enjoy your stupid Nevada!" John retorts, sticking his nose in the air. He calms down, smooths his shirt, pauses a moment to think, and starts to walk to the west. Suddenly, he stops, turns around, and then says to John, "Hey, you don't by any chance know how to get to New York, do you?"
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Mytical
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posted June 14, 2009 08:23 AM |
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While I agree that small steps are probably the best way, you must actually start the trip to get anywhere. Starting in California, going to Japan, then China, etc you certainly can get to New York .. eventually. Heading West (in this example toward proving the exsistance of ghosts (for those who need clarity the spirit, soul, or 'spark' of a once living HUMAN) would be 'New York') would be a much easier path. However, if you want to go to New York, but can't even imagine that New York exsists..then why would you head toward New York?
I am just saying that the journey should actually begin, even if we go to New York from California Via Venus...at least we will end up IN New York eventually.
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Corribus
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posted June 14, 2009 04:22 PM |
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However, if you want to go to New York, but can't even imagine that New York exsists..then why would you head toward New York?
Exactly! So what do you do? If you suppose a place called New York exists, but you don't know for sure, then you certainly can't just pack your bags and go there, can you? Well you could just start walking in some direction, hoping that eventually you'd bump into it, but that wouldn't be productive. So what does the logical person do? He walks somewhere he knows exists, some place he can see, and he asks someone there if they know the way. If they do, great. If they have never heard of this New York, they tell him some other place he can go and ask. By interrogating at places that we can go, we might learn how to get to where we want to go, even if at first it's only information about the general direction in which we need to be walk. The closer you get to New York, the better your directions are likely to get.
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I am just saying that the journey should actually begin, even if we go to New York from California Via Venus...at least we will end up IN New York eventually.
If I'm in California, there's no way I'll ever get to New York if I walk north. 
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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TheDeath
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posted June 15, 2009 02:37 AM |
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Only in such a way can we make - ON AVERAGE!!!! - a positive advancement towards the truth.
I think that would be more like philosophy since, to have an average you have to know the total number of such activities/advancements/steps, but there's no guarantee that they will be uniformly distributed. So while I agree with most of your post, I disagree about the on average thing as being scientific (of course, I perfectly understand what you mean by this "on average" but since the distribution form is unknown and there's no data, it can't be a scientific conclusion).
Also Corribus I know you want to be semantically correct with the word theory, but most people when they say theory, they do not refer to scientific theory (which is based on testing predictions), but a philosophical theory, or a mind-theory or thought-experiment or whatever it is called.
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Fauch
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posted June 15, 2009 03:03 AM |
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TheDeath is supernatural.
now, how can I proove it? 
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Corribus
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posted June 15, 2009 05:08 AM |
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@Death
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I think that would be more like philosophy since, to have an average you have to know the total number of such activities/advancements/steps, but there's no guarantee that they will be uniformly distributed. So while I agree with most of your post, I disagree about the on average thing as being scientific (of course, I perfectly understand what you mean by this "on average" but since the distribution form is unknown and there's no data, it can't be a scientific conclusion).
Yeah well I meant it more in a qualitative sense. Such as: sometimes we go in the wrong direction, but overall, we take steps in the right direction.
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Also Corribus I know you want to be semantically correct with the word theory, but most people when they say theory, they do not refer to scientific theory (which is based on testing predictions), but a philosophical theory, or a mind-theory or thought-experiment or whatever it is called.
I know that. But most people who try to use the word in a scientific sense use it incorrectly. I think it's important to know what your words mean when you use them. More specifically, it's important that two debating people are using the same definition for a word they're fighting over.
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Mytical
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posted June 16, 2009 06:51 AM |
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Ok something .. unusual happened today. Not sure if it would be supernatural or paranormal, but deffinately odd. Me, Heather, and my parents were sitting talking in my house. Things were going fine, and then suddenly all four of us got a cramp at the same time.
I got a cramp in my foot, Heather in her lower leg, my mother in her upper leg, and my father in his hand. The three of us females were hoping around like mad to work the cramp out, it was kinda comical. The funny thing was it happened to all of us at the exact same time. Weird to say the least.
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Rarensu
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posted June 16, 2009 09:34 AM |
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Edited by Rarensu at 09:42, 16 Jun 2009.
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In 1966, Cleve Backster accidentally discovered that plants can read minds. This is called the "Backster Effect".
He was using a polygraph to measure the rate of water moving from the bottom of a plant's roots, where he had just poured the water, to its leaves. However, he got distracted when the plant showed a response on the polygraph very similar to pleasure in humans. He thought "I should burn a leaf to see if it does the pain response too." As soon as he thought this, the polygraph showed the fear response. When he changed his mind, the polygraph went back to normal.
Backster then spent the next 30 years performing all kinds of experiments on plants and their psychic abilities. For example, he hooked a polygraph up to a plant and then murdered some brine shrimp. The plant was sad. Then he pretended to murder some brine shrimp, but the plant didn't fall for it. He even randomly mixed up the shrimp and the placebo so that the experiment was blind, but it still worked. This experiment has been repeated numerous times and generally* shows a positive correlation between the plant's emotional state and whether or not any shrimp actually died.
*It is possible to perform this experiment in ways that do not produce any response. Most scientists point to this as proof that the Backster effect is a lie.
*Myth busters did a show on this, but unfortunately their shrimp experiment was, as usual, inconclusive (Rolling My Eyes). They stapled a "busted" conclusion onto the end of the show based on a poorly conducted experiment that the just made up on the spot so that the show could move on.
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A Proponent of Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, and Courtesy.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 16, 2009 09:55 AM |
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Wouldn't it be the utmost of cruelty to give STATIONARY and basically helpless or unable-to-act organisms the ability to read minds? Considering that a lot of mobile organisms live off of them?
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Mytical
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posted June 16, 2009 10:12 AM |
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Not really JJ. The organism's minds would probably be too basic to 'read', and reading minds would not mean feeling pain. What I don't get is that sometimes it would have to have been 'feeling' the emotions of the shrimp..which doesn't really make sense. Their 'minds' should have been too basic for the plant to 'read' as well...
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JollyJoker
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posted June 16, 2009 10:19 AM |
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Consider only the plant reaction: a fear-like reaction on intentions against it or others or the bad feelings of other organisms - what purpose would that have? And a fear-like reaction is that: if the plant reacts, then it's registering in a consequent and even sentient way, because it interprets "correctly".
Makes no sense to me.
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Rarensu
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posted June 16, 2009 10:56 AM |
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Edited by Rarensu at 11:12, 16 Jun 2009.
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You're looking at it backwards. As you point out, it's silly to assume that a plant would evolve empathy or precognition. Since it can't act on it's discoveries, they would be a waste of energy.
However, it does make sense to assume that primordial life possessed empathy and precognition from the beginning. Thus plants to not need a reason to have it; they get it automatically as a vestigial structure.
It has been assumed that only creatures with central nervous systems have intelligence and central nervous systems must therefore be required for sentience. I point at the plasmodial slime mold. It is large single-celled organism that is basically a fungus. However, it can detect light and food and move itself in the safest direction. A singled celled organism obviously has no brain and no nerves, so how can it process this information, send the information to the far ends of it's body? If a slime mold can crawl, then it's not too hard to believe that a plant, which is infinitely more complicated, can feel.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 16, 2009 11:10 AM |
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Quote:
However, it does make sense to assume that primordial life possessed empathy and precognition from the beginning. Thus plants to not need a reason to have it; they get it automatically as a vestigial structure.
It does make sense? Why? And if it's a vestigial structure it means it has lost usefulness...
On first look I don't see any logic in it.
However, you miss an important point. If you can provoke a fear-like reaction in plants by INTENDING to do harmful things to them or something else - then this makes sense only if we interpret this indeed as a logical reaction CAUSED by an intention - which means that something within them realizes the meaning of the INTENTION. There is just no way round that.
Now, what I wonder is, how a vestigial structure would have the "knowledge" to react on an intention to burn something.
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Mytical
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posted June 16, 2009 11:16 AM |
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While they continue their debate on the feelings of plants..I've always wondered about something.
The mind has chemical processes much like electricity, right (I could be wrong, please say so if this is the case). Now some things can store electricity for later use. Could 'ghosts' just be a one time discharge (in most cases) of this stored electrical energy? Cause maybe by extream circumstances? If this is so, not only the deceased would be 'ghosts'. The living could very well leave behind these 'charges'. Maybe even enough of a charge to have multiple 'discharges'? Purely a 'theory' at this point, but I am just curious if this could be why their are 'ghosts' even if no 'afterlife' exsists (remember this is not a discussion of if the afterlife exsists..)
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Rarensu
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posted June 16, 2009 11:17 AM |
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Edited by Rarensu at 11:23, 16 Jun 2009.
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@JJ
Oh, I see - you're arguing that plants aren't sentient, so they can't possible understand intention.
I agree completely! A non-sentient entity can't understand intention.
However, I don't assume that plants aren't sentient. I assume that they are.
@mytical
Electric charge is stored in atoms and molecules, which are dissolved into the dirt once the body is dead.
In order for your theory to work, you have to assume that something, called "ghosts," can store electric charge the same way an atom can.
However, there is no one who will accept this, because it is easy to measure nearby electric charge and we've never found any floating around on its own.
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Sincerely,
A Proponent of Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, and Courtesy.
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