Author Topic: Do You Believe In Ghosts?  (Read 41540 times)

Offline David In Indy

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #90 on: November 17, 2006, 02:54:40 am »
:o :o :o :o

Here I was following my count for a week, then forgot all about it tonight when I was posting.

Yay me!! ;D ;D ;D

Well, I have a drink waiting for you over in the +1000 Posts Club...

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=1579.msg115167;topicseen#msg115167

And if you don't drink, I'll buy you a cold glass of lemonade, a soda or a cup of coffee!!  :D
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Marge_Innavera

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #91 on: November 21, 2006, 08:08:20 pm »
Randi is a quite rational man whose scientific method is well established.  If you read his books - and his work is backed up by CSCICOP - his approaches are not only rational, they're extremely objective.  He forces no one to come to him, the people who approach him claim they have a supernatural talent that they can control and display.

He merely sets up the conditions under which they are tested.  Being a magician himself, he is well aware of scammers and fakers and how they dupe others.  Sometimes these people are con jobs, other times they truly believe they can do these things and end up not being able to demonstrate that they can.

Randi's whole POV is that they are all either scammers and fakes or victims of their own imaginations. He approaches the whole issue with George W. Bush approach: don't waste your time, I know the answers. I saw a thorough PBS report of his participation in a test of homeopathy, and it was a farce. It was based on seeing whether or not homeopathy could do something totally outside its claims. That is not research, it's a fundamentalist mentality.  IMO, as a magician he is quite well versed in playing to peoples' fears and to wishful thinking, and that includes the anxiety in the Western psyche over control and categorization.  He's a very good manipulator; that doesn't make him reliable.

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Science is all about empirical evidence.  Being able to measure something.  They can't test something unless what is being tested can be repeated.

Yes, physical science is all about that, which is one of its limitations.

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They can't test your telekinetic episodes if you can't reproduce the ability on demand so it would be a useless exercise.  Kelpersmek pretty much laid it out.  If you have control over it, your ability should be tested.  If you don't have control over it, there's nothing to test  That's not saying you don't have these episodes, it's simply saying that there is no scientific basis for them until someone with such abilities who has control over them comes forward to be tested and then there will be.

What I'm saying is that consulting the people Kelp recommended would be a total waste of time, as I'm sure he was well aware to begin with.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2006, 08:13:23 pm by Marge_Innavera »

Offline delalluvia

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #92 on: November 22, 2006, 09:49:27 pm »
Randi's whole POV is that they are all either scammers and fakes or victims of their own imaginations. He approaches the whole issue with George W. Bush approach: don't waste your time, I know the answers.

Well, that's because no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved him wrong.  Until that happens, I'd say he's standing on pretty firm ground.  People who make claims outside what is accepted have to prove their claims, if they don't or can't then [shrug].

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I saw a thorough PBS report of his participation in a test of homeopathy, and it was a farce. It was based on seeing whether or not homeopathy could do something totally outside its claims. That is not research, it's a fundamentalist mentality.

I didn't see it and don't know what homeopathy claims to do, so I can't comment on this.  It's likely he was referring to one specific case.  i.e. someone had a very specific claim that homeopathy could do something (generally not accepted by other practitioners) and he proved them incorrect.

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IMO, as a magician he is quite well versed in playing to peoples' fears and to wishful thinking, and that includes the anxiety in the Western psyche over control and categorization.  He's a very good manipulator; that doesn't make him reliable.

Well, other people - scientists and skeptics - laud his work, so apparently he's not so much 'manipulating' as doing a very good job of testing.  Yes, he's a magician, so he puts on a really good show because he DOES know what people want to see.  He knows what they expect and so he frames his tests around what a normal person would expect.  That's called knowing your audience.

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Yes, physical science is all about that, which is one of its limitations.

Well, physical science is the only empirical science there is.  That's what it's supposed to do.  I don't see that as a limitation. 

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What I'm saying is that consulting the people Kelp recommended would be a total waste of time, as I'm sure he was well aware to begin with.


We are all in agreement here.  Unless you can control your episodes and make them happen at will, there's no point.  Your ability cannot be scientifically tested nor proven.

Marge_Innavera

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #93 on: November 24, 2006, 10:36:06 am »
Well, that's because no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved him wrong.  Until that happens, I'd say he's standing on pretty firm ground.

That's a bit like saying that no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved Holocaust deniers wrong. The "reward" that Kelpersmek disingenuously referred to will never be collected because no proof is ever enough for fanatics.

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People who make claims outside what is accepted have to prove their claims, if they don't or can't then [shrug].

Assuming that everyone is interested in proving them, especially to True Believers. It's usually a waste of time.

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I didn't see it and don't know what homeopathy claims to do, so I can't comment on this.  It's likely he was referring to one specific case.  i.e. someone had a very specific claim that homeopathy could do something (generally not accepted by other practitioners) and he proved them incorrect.

Idid see it, so I can comment on this. There was no specific case. What his "panel of researchers" did was to take some of the ingredients homeopathy uses, dilute them to the strength normally used (we're talking extremely diluted solutions here), put them in test tubes and then waited to see if there were any changes in the distilled water used. Of course there wasn't, and Randi and his followers crowed that they had "proven homeopathy wrong."

Of course, they didn't bother to mention, or perhaps didn't care to find out (see GW Bush, et. al) that the way homeopathy operates, it has to interact with the rest of the body. Their experiement was equivalent to taking out everything under the hood of a car other than the engine and then proclaiming the engine to be defective because the car won't start.

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Well, other people - scientists and skeptics - laud his work, so apparently he's not so much 'manipulating' as doing a very good job of testing. 

By that standard, Intelligent Design should be taught in every university on the planet. Not impressed.

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Yes, he's a magician, so he puts on a really good show because he DOES know what people want to see.  He knows what they expect and so he frames his tests around what a normal person would expect.  That's called knowing your audience.

That's rather obvious.

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Well, physical science is the only empirical science there is.  That's what it's supposed to do.  I don't see that as a limitation. 

Right; it's the only empirical science there is. It's limited in terms of anything outside those boundaries.

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We are all in agreement here.

Obviously, "we" are not as you're addressing another member of this forum who isn't in agreement.

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  Unless you can control your episodes and make them happen at will, there's no point.  Your ability cannot be scientifically tested nor proven.

Actually, I never said I was interested. There's no reason I should be.

Offline delalluvia

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #94 on: November 25, 2006, 03:21:03 pm »
That's a bit like saying that no one has ever stepped up to the plate and proved Holocaust deniers wrong. The "reward" that Kelpersmek disingenuously referred to will never be collected because no proof is ever enough for fanatics.

You can't prove a negative.  You have to prove a claim.  Holocaust claimants have certainly done that.  Randi and the scientific community say that no supernatural abilities exist.  Other people claim they do.  The burden lies on the claimant to prove it.

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Assuming that everyone is interested in proving them, especially to True Believers. It's usually a waste of time.

Why wouldn't they be?  Rather than be considered wishful thinkers?

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I did see it, so I can comment on this. There was no specific case. What his "panel of researchers" did was to take some of the ingredients homeopathy uses, dilute them to the strength normally used (we're talking extremely diluted solutions here), put them in test tubes and then waited to see if there were any changes in the distilled water used. Of course there wasn't, and Randi and his followers crowed that they had "proven homeopathy wrong."

Well, actually that's a pretty good test.  The body is over 70% water and water is known as the universal solvent.  If the ingredients don't react with water, what hope is there that they're going to react with anything else in the body when most of the other chemicals in the body are in a water solution?  SEE EDIT BELOW.

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By that standard, Intelligent Design should be taught in every university on the planet. Not impressed.

Um, that's incorrect seeing as how ID doesn't pass the same types of testing.

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ht; it's the only empirical science there is. It's limited in terms of anything outside those boundaries.

Well, if phenomenon is outside those boundaries then it's not scientifically provable and thus, not a science as per the definition.

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Obviously, "we" are not as you're addressing another member of this forum who isn't in agreement.

No, Kelp also agreed that you had to be in control of your kinetic episodes to be tested otherwise it was a waste of time.

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Actually, I never said I was interested. There's no reason I should be.

There are many reasons you should be, if nothing more than making a name for yourself in history and adding to the knowledge of the world, your abilities might help in the study of the human brain and save human lives and improve the standard of living for humans in the future.

EDITED TO ADD:  After reading Marge's post, I went and googled the homeopathic test she was talking about.  Here's a good summary of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml
« Last Edit: November 25, 2006, 08:21:08 pm by delalluvia »

Offline LauraGigs

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #95 on: November 26, 2006, 12:33:52 am »
I was the youngest kid in my family and was alone in the house a lot. My oldest sis had died when I was 5 and she was 19. During the day I would wander into the back yard a lot; it seemed like there was a quiet presence there, and if I were to 'find' her, it would be there. I don't know if I really felt her, though. Just a presense.

When I was alone in the house at night, I'd get spooked out easily. What didn't help was the fact that my room was at the very end of this long hallway. As you walked down this hallway, there was this large portrait facing you of my long-dead grandpa and his twin brother when they were boys. This being an old, large photo, they were staring straight at the camera with these wide-eyed, unsmiling expressions. (Spooky as f^ck.)

Anyway, back to the yard: mom told me pretty recently that before we moved in, a man had died in the backyard — either a suicide or was struck by lightning (the latter seeming unlikely since the yard was full of very tall trees). I was like, "thanks for freakin' telling me!"

My mom was a realtor and sometimes would drag me along to empty homes she was showing. On a couple of occasions I would sense bad 'vibes' in the house — just a sad, bad feeling. No orbs or other visible/audible signs though. I was definitely more attuned to those feelings of awareness as a child than later.  (It was kind of a relief to stop having them.)
« Last Edit: November 26, 2006, 12:40:23 am by LauraGigs »

Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #96 on: April 28, 2008, 08:45:35 pm »


I'm reviving this really old topic because I feel the need to report some spooky things that have happened in my apartment in the past several months.  My toilet has flushed itself and/or gurgled dramatically when no one was in the bathroom (or had used it recently).  The faucets in the bathroom turned on once.  And, my DVD player has turned itself on once and opened the little drawer where you insert the discs.  Actually, when the DVD player opened itself, it pushed a DVD case that was in front of it, off the TV stand.
 :o

I feel that I can explain the toilet and even maybe the faucet issue as a water-pressure thing.  I live in a very old building (built in the 1920s) and I live on the 2nd floor of 9.  So, maybe the water pressure in the old pipes at the bottom of such a tall building could get a little kooky.  I do have really strong water pressure in the shower. 

But, all of that combined with the bizarre behavior of my DVD player really is a little spooky. 

the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #97 on: April 28, 2008, 09:57:42 pm »
ok I am glad you DID revive it....cause I want to ask a question.

WHY do ghosts have clothes on??

I mean if they are just the soul of the people then why does the clothes get turned into spirit form??

does anyone know?

Has anyone seen a nekkid ghost?

Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #98 on: April 28, 2008, 10:07:59 pm »
ok I am glad you DID revive it....cause I want to ask a question.

WHY do ghosts have clothes on??

I mean if they are just the soul of the people then why does the clothes get turned into spirit form??

does anyone know?

Has anyone seen a nekkid ghost?

LOL  :laugh:  That's a great question Jess.  Since I've never actually seen a ghost, I guess I can't really answer that.  As far as movies, etc. go, the clothing on ghosts is probably just the product of the over-active imaginations of artistic directors on set.

The most I've ever experienced have been things like bumps in the night and now the faucet/toilet/DVD-player situation that I just described.  I've also heard some quite convincing stories by people I trust.  So, I voted that, "yes, I do believe in ghosts, but have never seen one" (I voted that long ago) and I'm sticking to it. 

LOL, in this situation with the faucet that turns itself on, I'm hoping that now that I'm the pet-parent to a black cat that she can somehow protect me.
:)



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injest

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Re: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
« Reply #99 on: April 28, 2008, 10:13:42 pm »
LOL  :laugh:  That's a great question Jess.  Since I've never actually seen a ghost, I guess I can't really answer that.  As far as movies, etc. go, the clothing on ghosts is probably just the product of the over-active imaginations of artistic directors on set.

The most I've ever experienced have been things like bumps in the night and now the faucet/toilet/DVD-player situation that I just described.  I've also heard some quite convincing stories by people I trust.  So, I voted that, "yes, I do believe in ghosts, but have never seen one" (I voted that long ago) and I'm sticking to it. 

LOL, in this situation with the faucet that turns itself on, I'm hoping that now that I'm the pet-parent to a black cat that she can somehow protect me.
:)





I blame ALL spooky noises on my cats....

the lady I work with said she was in bed with her husband and the TV turned itself on...nothing but snow...they tried the remote and that didnt' turn it off...so he got up and hit the button...it STILL didn't go off..

then they unplugged it...









and it STILL STAYED ON!!!

said it ran for about five minutes and then quit.





and they STAYED there!




I myself would have insisted we move that night.....wouldn't even get dressed...