[yamamato]

I've been thinking, is the paranormal all psychological, just like religion? The mind can play tricks, such as on people who are afraid of the dark. This could be the case for most ghosts, aliens and monsters seen. UFOs however, could just be normal lights in the sky or just secret US aircraft. Alien abductions- sleep paralysis.
Certain groups of people are more likely to hallucinate, why isn't this ever thought of on these forums? Rational thinking would dictate that monsters, ghosts or whatever do not exist. Could these people just be day dreaming when sightings occur? Such as books falling off shelves being blamed by ghosts, why does this immediately have to be linked to being something paranormal, can't books just fall off naturally? It is the same for conspiracy theories, the human mind does not accept the simple reason, but thinks there is always something greater behind it that they do not know about.
It is the human imagination that is the catalyst of fake images; we believe them as we fear the unknown. If these things were real, to date, we would have several real photos and videos of the paranormal, but there are none that immediately stand out. I think most people should remain a sceptic until they see real evidence, not just something small they witnessed which could be explained by psychology.
Even through history we see myths and legends the majority believed in, subject of the human imagination. Nowadays everyone would immediately pass off tales of monsters, but why do many suddenly believe stories of the Mothman etc?

This is not a troll post, or an attack on anyone, just my views.

[Wookietim]

yamamato, on 20 October 2009 - 09:34 AM, said:

I've been thinking, is the paranormal all psychological, just like religion? The mind can play tricks, such as on people who are afraid of the dark. This could be the case for most ghosts, aliens and monsters seen. UFOs however, could just be normal lights in the sky or just secret US aircraft. Alien abductions- sleep paralysis.
Certain groups of people are more likely to hallucinate, why isn't this ever thought of on these forums? Rational thinking would dictate that monsters, ghosts or whatever do not exist. Could these people just be day dreaming when sightings occur? Such as books falling off shelves being blamed by ghosts, why does this immediately have to be linked to being something paranormal, can't books just fall off naturally? It is the same for conspiracy theories, the human mind does not accept the simple reason, but thinks there is always something greater behind it that they do not know about.
It is the human imagination that is the catalyst of fake images; we believe them as we fear the unknown. If these things were real, to date, we would have several real photos and videos of the paranormal, but there are none that immediately stand out. I think most people should remain a sceptic until they see real evidence, not just something small they witnessed which could be explained by psychology.
Even through history we see myths and legends the majority believed in, subject of the human imagination. Nowadays everyone would immediately pass off tales of monsters, but why do many suddenly believe stories of the Mothman etc?

This is not a troll post, or an attack on anyone, just my views.

Well, technically since we process the outside world using our brain from just electrical impulses sent from the sense, everything is in our minds...

That said, I think that the vast majority of these things are just what you are getting at - people want to see UFO's or Ghosts or Mothman or Bigfoot or whatever so they do. But even if 99.99% of the cases can be explained that way there would still be that last .01%....

[She-ra]

Good questioning and nice thoughts. I guess I have to say this is what brought me to this forum. The mind wants to be able to recognize something and label it- I think HAHAHA! Anyways, I guess some look to NOT be seen as crazy and look for explainations, no matter how far-fetched it may seem? I consider myself to be usually sane (outside of a playful wild streak) and I have witnessed some fairly odd things. I don't know. Some things just don't fit nicely into a box? Some stuff is just weird and well there are entirely too many of us out there that have witnessed stuff for there not to be something amiss?? Whatever... I guess we all will figure this out one day. Or maybe we aren't supposed to figure anything out? Hmm, I like this thread. Okay I'll stop rambling now

[behaviour???]

Good question there....It is not always that the mind playing games but there are some very true experiences though none have been irrefutable in this regard whatsoever....As you said only some, ie very few belive in mothman and other such cryptids but In my case I carefully evaluate everything that is put before me before believing something...And I do hope other will do so too

Note-this post is not intended on anybody and any beliefs.

Thanks
B???

[Paranormalcy]

The real problem with assessing this type of thing is that people aren't just coming at this from a totally neutral museum-like indifference, thinking "Oh, hm, that's interesting". They become interested in the paranormal because they or someone they know have sightings, experiences or encounters of things that defy what they know to be "real", which in turn can easily cause misperceptions, exaggerations and expectation, as well as assumption and superstition, and people tend to get fixated on certain points and hold onto them, some good, some bad. This makes it very hard for them to look at things objectively, rather than subjectively. As I'm sure you know, try to tell someone who swears to you that they just saw all their dishes fly out of the cabinet and smash into the wall,or a seven foot tall shadow was creeping up on them while they couldn't move, to calm down and look at things objectively - it is a difficult carrot to dangle.

[Wookietim]

Paranormalcy, on 20 October 2009 - 04:14 PM, said:

The real problem with assessing this type of thing is that people aren't just coming at this from a totally neutral museum-like indifference, thinking "Oh, hm, that's interesting". They become interested in the paranormal because they or someone they know have sightings, experiences or encounters of things that defy what they know to be "real", which in turn can easily cause misperceptions, exaggerations and expectation, as well as assumption and superstition, and people tend to get fixated on certain points and hold onto them, some good, some bad. This makes it very hard for them to look at things objectively, rather than subjectively. As I'm sure you know, try to tell someone who swears to you that they just saw all their dishes fly out of the cabinet and smash into the wall,or a seven foot tall shadow was creeping up on them while they couldn't move, to calm down and look at things objectively - it is a difficult carrot to dangle.

I agree with that... But i think it is even one step farther. Once a person develops an interest in the paranormal they tend to develop personal theories about it. And once that happens, it is very hard to convince them otherwise. Evidence that contradicts their theories tends to be ignored... and it's not even ignored consciously.

So, if a person wants to believe ghosts are the souls of the dearly departed, then that is what the evidence they see will prove... if they want to believe ghosts are recording embedded in the surrounding environment, then that is what they will see. At that point, the paranormal is in their minds rather than being approached as a separate phenomenon... The trouble is, it's part of human nature to do this type of thing...

[Paranormalcy]

When all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails, as the saying goes. Good observation. And skeptics OF the paranormal are just as susceptible to this kind of "blinders on" thinking, and I don't doubt my own reliance on a set framework of more mundane (or even paranormal) explanation that I feel is reasonable, may sometimes do me and others a disservice, but we're all just human.

[Wookietim]

Paranormalcy, on 20 October 2009 - 04:38 PM, said:

When all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails, as the saying goes. Good observation. And skeptics OF the paranormal are just as susceptible to this kind of "blinders on" thinking, and I don't doubt my own reliance on a set framework of more mundane (or even paranormal) explanation that I feel is reasonable, may sometimes do me and others a disservice, but we're all just human.

I fully agree... Personally I am a skeptic when it comes to certain things and find myself falling into that trap sometimes : "That can't be real because that just can't be real!"

I try to shake myself out of it when I notice it, but I am sure that I fall into that trap just as often as the "True Believers" do without noticing it.

But like i said - it's human nature. In college I had a teacher talk about this type of thing... what would happen if a person, from birth, was taught to see anything that we see as red as green? Well, they would see green - and nothing that could be said to them would make them see red. To a certain extent it's the same in the paranormal (or any) community.

[.i.]

Maybe everything is in our mind? And so if you'd like to see paranormal activity as something not possible, then perhaps thats how it will be?

[aquatus1]

yamamato, on 20 October 2009 - 02:34 PM, said:

I've been thinking, is the paranormal all psychological, just like religion? The mind can play tricks, such as on people who are afraid of the dark. This could be the case for most ghosts, aliens and monsters seen. UFOs however, could just be normal lights in the sky or just secret US aircraft. Alien abductions- sleep paralysis.
Certain groups of people are more likely to hallucinate, why isn't this ever thought of on these forums? Rational thinking would dictate that monsters, ghosts or whatever do not exist. Could these people just be day dreaming when sightings occur? Such as books falling off shelves being blamed by ghosts, why does this immediately have to be linked to being something paranormal, can't books just fall off naturally? It is the same for conspiracy theories, the human mind does not accept the simple reason, but thinks there is always something greater behind it that they do not know about.
It is the human imagination that is the catalyst of fake images; we believe them as we fear the unknown. If these things were real, to date, we would have several real photos and videos of the paranormal, but there are none that immediately stand out. I think most people should remain a sceptic until they see real evidence, not just something small they witnessed which could be explained by psychology.
Even through history we see myths and legends the majority believed in, subject of the human imagination. Nowadays everyone would immediately pass off tales of monsters, but why do many suddenly believe stories of the Mothman etc?

This is not a troll post, or an attack on anyone, just my views.

It's entirely possible that paranormal phenomena are merely tricks of the mind (and, if it turns out that the paranormal does not exist, then every story we have ever heard of will be nothing more than that), but this is not necessarily a situation in which either there is a simple solution or there is nothing at all.

Scientific methodology is a relatively young way to look at the world, barely 500 years old at this point. Granted, in those few centuries, we have learned more about the world than in all the millenia preceding it, but we musn't fall into the conceit that we have as yet perfect our method of learning. Currently, science tends to be focused on sause and effect. It is an elegant and logical way to view the world, and it explains what we have studied as well as Newtonian theory explains the daily physics in our lives. However, in just the same way that we learned of greater motions in the universe, movements that went beyond the ability of Newton to explain, there may be more than the cause and effect that we are so used to. We simply do not know where the next paradigm shift is, and it may well be that to explain that "greater movement" that we are only now hearing reports of, in terms of what is normal and what is paranormal, a new way to look at science, a psychic version of Einstein's theory of relativity is in the offing.

The trick is to allow it to develop, or not develop, in the same way that the rest of science has.

[jel0sh]

Wookietim, on 20 October 2009 - 09:27 AM, said:

Well, technically since we process the outside world using our brain from just electrical impulses sent from the sense, everything is in our minds...

That said, I think that the vast majority of these things are just what you are getting at - people want to see UFO's or Ghosts or Mothman or Bigfoot or whatever so they do. But even if 99.99% of the cases can be explained that way there would still be that last .01%....

Yep I agree. For example the air force had project blue book, & the only real purpose of that project was to go out & disprove UFO sightings. Allen Hynek (an astronomer) was one of the people sent out to disprove UFO sightings & started out as a skeptic believing that they can all be easily dismissed as man made misidentification or natural phenomenon. He studied thousands of UFO sightings & eventually he changed his tune & thought that serious investigation should be done in the cases that couldn't be explained away. So yeah I agree that a lot of paranormal experiences can be just over active imaginations, tick of lightings & just human nature looking for things that aren't really there. BUT a small % of the cases I believe are real. The problem is finding the fine line between real & imagination.

[sinewave]

yamamato, on 20 October 2009 - 08:34 AM, said:

I've been thinking, is the paranormal all psychological, just like religion? The mind can play tricks, such as on people who are afraid of the dark. This could be the case for most ghosts, aliens and monsters seen. UFOs however, could just be normal lights in the sky or just secret US aircraft. Alien abductions- sleep paralysis.
Certain groups of people are more likely to hallucinate, why isn't this ever thought of on these forums? Rational thinking would dictate that monsters, ghosts or whatever do not exist. Could these people just be day dreaming when sightings occur? Such as books falling off shelves being blamed by ghosts, why does this immediately have to be linked to being something paranormal, can't books just fall off naturally? It is the same for conspiracy theories, the human mind does not accept the simple reason, but thinks there is always something greater behind it that they do not know about.
It is the human imagination that is the catalyst of fake images; we believe them as we fear the unknown. If these things were real, to date, we would have several real photos and videos of the paranormal, but there are none that immediately stand out. I think most people should remain a sceptic until they see real evidence, not just something small they witnessed which could be explained by psychology.
Even through history we see myths and legends the majority believed in, subject of the human imagination. Nowadays everyone would immediately pass off tales of monsters, but why do many suddenly believe stories of the Mothman etc?

This is not a troll post, or an attack on anyone, just my views.

That is certainly a valid question. My belief is human perception is flawed and the paranormal is largely a function of the significance we place on those perceptual miscues. Further, perception can be colored by expectation. If we expect to see ghosts, aliens, or creatures of the night we will probably see them. Suggestion can be very powerful.

[Wookietim]

aquatus1, on 20 October 2009 - 09:10 PM, said:

It's entirely possible that paranormal phenomena are merely tricks of the mind (and, if it turns out that the paranormal does not exist, then every story we have ever heard of will be nothing more than that), but this is not necessarily a situation in which either there is a simple solution or there is nothing at all.

Well, to be honest, one thing we can say is that the paranormal does not exist... after all, if it happens in this universe then it is part of the normal way things are in the universe. Therefore nothing that exists within nature can ever be "Paranormal"... ;-)

[sinewave]

jel0sh, on 20 October 2009 - 08:49 PM, said:

Yep I agree. For example the air force had project blue book, & the only real purpose of that project was to go out & disprove UFO sightings. Allen Hynek (an astronomer) was one of the people sent out to disprove UFO sightings & started out as a skeptic believing that they can all be easily dismissed as man made misidentification or natural phenomenon. He studied thousands of UFO sightings & eventually he changed his tune & thought that serious investigation should be done in the cases that couldn't be explained away. So yeah I agree that a lot of paranormal experiences can be just over active imaginations, tick of lightings & just human nature looking for things that aren't really there. BUT a small % of the cases I believe are real. The problem is finding the fine line between real & imagination.

The UFO work done by the Air Force was not done so much to disprove UFOs but to find out if they were Soviet aircraft. Never under estimate the power of the Cold War on the American psyche.

[aquatus1]

Wookietim, on 22 October 2009 - 03:34 PM, said:

Well, to be honest, one thing we can say is that the paranormal does not exist... after all, if it happens in this universe then it is part of the normal way things are in the universe. Therefore nothing that exists within nature can ever be "Paranormal"... ;-)

Ahhh! **raises index finger and both eyebrows dramatically** But that does not preclude that the paranormal may well be something that is outside of nature (which is, after all, limited to the life and landscape of a particular planet).