what would you ask a skeptic?

[Sevastiel]

The whole who's the "faither" and who's not process grows tedious.

Here : define:faith

By lines 1 & 3, the usual suspects are guilty.

By line 2, so are the scientific community.

The definition (very first part) of faith in the American Heritage Dictionary is even more all-inclusive:

"1: A confident belief in the truth, value or trustworthiness of a person, idea or thing."

Sorry fellow geeks. We're guilty of faith, based upon known & established definition from multiple sources. (refer to the 'thing' portion of the AHD specifically, since that's often the ultimate empirical focus).

Suppose I don't need to point out the obvious to the other side of this argument ('idea' or, conceptually 'person' and I'll add 'perceived persona or archetype')...

[Sevastiel]

As I've read through these posts, I get the impression that it's not about establishing the existence of anything so much as the notion of conceptual process. So towards that end, Seeker is correct. May be that the typical stalwart defense of pragmatism was seeing what it wanted to see and then projecting it onto the perceived. Tisk, tisk... that's supposed to be something believers are guilty of, not us...

I'll read closer in case I missed something, but I don't recall any specific elements beseeching us to believe in ghosts, ufos or other such things outright; rather the not-unforeseen skirting-of-edges of probability that can be expected by either side in an argument over potentials and possibilities (arguably the only common ground there is).

This running argument isn't about 'faith' at all.

More objectivity required to see this; more-so than those who typically pride themselves on objectivity have shown...otherwise this would have been made obvious long before now regarding this sub-thread within this thread. Maybe my experience with cognitive science makes it easier for me to see, maybe my age, but I don't think that's a prerequisite.

Edited April 10, 2011 by Sevastiel

[ShadowofaDoubt]

By listen.... You mean agree. You sound like a preacher,. I read everything written I understand it fine. I accept reductionist thinking, materialist thinking, scientific thinking I even aply it to a certain degree. for the the value that it serves, then reject it when it fails to be of use. Just like any tool, when it dosnt work get a new tool. That's all it is a tool You don't use a hammer to mow the lawn. Materialists fail to be able to step outside of their indoctrination, education, or world view, however they became one. There is a continueum of people. Fundamentalist on one side and fundamaterislists on the other. Most people fall in the middle of course. Only those on the ends of the bell curve are so wrapped up in their "bible" that it is impossible to step out of their box, and when you don't join them they claim you don't understand even if at one point you were one of them.. I will repeat myself again as all of this has resorted to. Same old story, I might as well be arguing with a penticostal about the bible.

It's been fun. You guys are better than most. Where o wher e did korbus go. He is so good at not getting emotional.

wrong.

and you just proved my point.

[White Crane Feather]

wrong.

and you just proved my point.

And you mine

[White Crane Feather]

Wow...you are going out of your way now to deny what you are hearing.

It's a possibility, but not a probability. Again, you keep repeating your same mistakes, and I keep correcting you about them. You have this image of science being about smart guys in closed rooms agreeing with everything each other says. Real science is a battle field of people trying to get their ideas noticed. You keep trying to throw in believer power words, your latest invoking the fearsome trap of "DOGMA". That is just silly. I said that I would give an unsupported idea conditional acceptance simply out of convenience. That is not dogma. That is being open-minded. I said that I would then investigate the phenomena (Why wouldn't I? A repeatable phenomena was precisely what I originally claimed I would need in order to believe the phenomena of ghosts exists). Learning new things is pretty much the polar opposite of dogma.

You have this blinkered vision of science. No matter how much you claim to understand it, it is pretty clear that in your head is that stuffy group in the closed room who refuse to accept any new ideas. Expose themselves? Any scientist would be absolutely ecstatic about finding a new phenomena of science! That is about as close to intellectual immortality as you are ever going to get! Scientists dream about being able to overturn the status quo. But it doesn't happen often, because not only do you need a cooperative phenomena, you also need a scientist to be in the right place, at the right time, with the proper skills.

Seeker, you need to be more honest with yourself. It is pretty clear that the only thing you were hoping to accomplish is to corner a skeptic and force him to admit that ghosts exist. It didn't occur to you that this would not be a problem for a skeptic, and indeed, mere acknowledgment of existence is not even a first step. I asked you why you were so hung up on acknowledgment and pointed out the utter lack of value in it as a process unto itself, and never got an answer. Why is it so important to you that people admit that ghosts exist, so important that as long as you get that, you are happy, and it doesn't matter that the argument is so weak it can be used with no change whatsoever to acknowledge the existance of alien mind rays and superintelligent clouds.

To be perfectly frank, if anyone here is acting in a dogmatic fashion, it is you. You have refused to waiver from your interpretation of science, even after having been regularly corrected on it. You have projected onto the people describing it attributes that you yourself are displaying, such as close-mindedness, and mockery. You have refused to acknowledge an answer to the motives behind a specific question you asked, after the specific question was answered. And here, in what is possibly the ultimate culmination of dogma, even after having gotten an honest answer, completely consistent with the system that you continually have been misrepresenting, you have simply gone into denial, with absolutely nothing more to offer than the cliched postulate of the dogmatic "No way! They would never do that!"

Again, as long as you continue to think of science as faith-based, you will never be able to comprehend it. No matter how much you think you do.

According to whom? Themselves? How do we know they are telling the truth? How are we validating their knowledge? How do we even know they do have experience in the matter? How can you tell if someone is travelling out of their body or if they are just sitting really, really still?

You keep claiming this all-encompassing philosophy of yours is superior for understanding the "Big Picture". How so? How do you learn from it? How do you know you are correct? More importantly, how do you know you are wrong? How can that knowledge be passed on to others? You spent a lot of time trying to get me to admit that ghosts are real, to the point of creating an utterly implausible scenario, and I went ahead and admitted that ghost were real for that purpose. Now what? Where does your system take me next? I explained how my system works; what does yours do?

Still not getting it, are you? I am not faith-based. I don't trust people just because they give me a wink and "Trust me. I know what I'm talking about." I judge a person by their actions, not by their words. Your actions here...they do not indicate that you actually "get it". They do not indicate that I should trust you. In fact, they indicate the exact opposite. They indicate that you just pay lip service to understanding, and always, as soon as possible, return to your original, faith-based, bias (otherwise known as dogma).

Still not listening. I won't bother trying to explain it to you a fifth time. For others who are following along at home, Belief, Faith, and confidence, are three separate things, and should never be used interchangeably, particularly in a discussion such as this, where the semantic differences affect entire concepts and philosophies. There is a reason why dictionaries have multiple definitions of words, and it isn't for the sake of convenience.

Similarly, science does not presume that it can address all of reality. In fact, it makes it pretty clear what it's limits and boundaries are. Science can only address that which it has data to address with. If it does not have that data, it cannot address it. That means it cannot validate the existence of it, nor can it deny the existence of it. Nothing more, nothing less. Beware of believers who attempt to tag on additional, but incorrect extras and addendums to that very simple rule.

And, for the record, stepping out to the edge is meaningless if you keep your eyes shut the entire time.

Your faith in science should not exist at all.

Well, you keep saying that, but you never state why. It's just a postulate of yours. Why wouldn't science be able to fathom higher informational constructs (another term which I asked you to describe and which you did not). Why would science never be able to predict "life"? What is "Life"? Why would science decide it isn't possible? You keep making these absolute statements that we are supposed to blindly accept as being true. Why would faith force you to do that?

More to the point, how would whatever you call your system answer any of these questions? How would a non-reductionist process give us data on the above? Tell me, because I sincerely want to know. Please, define "life" as seen through your holistic system.

Again, how? How does induction answer the questions. I have explained the entire skeptical and scientific methodology process and how we come to gather data. Your turn. Show me how you can learn from induction. Show me how it is a more efficient system, or superior, or even that it can come up with answers that scientific methodology cannot.

In other words, put up or shut up. I've done my part defending my process; now it's your turn.

Wow! I think I met a jahovas wittness just like this once. Out of sheer masicism I'm going to roll up my sleeves and tackle this, but you will have to take it one post at a time.

Before I continue, I want to make it perfectly clear that I'm not hear to force anyone to do anything. Your reaction consistently reminds me of a fundamentalists. I do this for sheer entertainment because frankly telivision is boring, I only drink once a month, and Im all read out on books at the moment. I have had this same argument dozens of times with plenty of people that remain sceptics, disagree with me, and we are on each other friends list. Don't put any maliciouse intentions in my court. Or agenda. I'm hear because it's fun. And it gets more fun the more preachy guys like you get. You should see the fun I have the fundamentalists. With that said I'll take a shot.

Oh, yes. When I decide to leave the conversation, I you can be sure that I'm not hideing from anything. I'm just bored.

[White Crane Feather]

"Wow...you are going out of your way now to deny what you are hearing."

no denial no mistakes, just different opinion. That's what dogma is. When you consider a belief more authoritative than another. You are guilty of dogma my friend.

[White Crane Feather]

" You have this image of science being about smart guys in closed rooms agreeing with everything each other says. Real science is a battle field of people trying to get their ideas noticed."

I have no such image. Real science is what?..... Say it again....... "battle field"?. Now you are beginning to understand. You see on a battle field the prize goes to the winner. The winner is not always who you romantisise it to be. Plenty of wonderful ideas are swept under, bought up, kept hidden, stolen, killed, or defeated for a vast amount of other reason other than their validity. If aliens really did crash in Roswell ( I don't nescecerily believe that they did) do you not think the us government would not act exactly as everyone thinks they did. If cold fusion were prooven to be easy by some young sceintist, do you think he would be able to freely share his idea and defend it from peer review? How many battle fields have been won by sheer genius of arguing and rederic as poised to validity. I once taught a class how to juggle, yet I don't even no how.

Edited April 11, 2011 by Seeker79

[White Crane Feather]

"I said that I would give an unsupported idea conditional acceptance simply out of convenience. That is not dogma. That is being open-minded. I said that I would then investigate the phenomena (Why wouldn't I? A repeatable phenomena was precisely what I originally claimed I would need in order to believe the phenomena of ghosts exists). Learning new things is pretty much the polar opposite of dogma."

let's do it then. I have a formula that can produce an OBE with some practice. From there you can experience things so increadible you will be forever changed. I challenge you to work at haveing an experience. If you can, then you have at least the reproducable part. Then sitting in a group of people who has had the experience it is all verified because you all know it exists. Other people can choose to verify it if they wish..... But most are scared to. Can you walk the walk instead of just talk? I will be your personal tutor.

[White Crane Feather]

"Seeker, you need to be more honest with yourself. It is pretty clear that the only thing you were hoping to accomplish is to corner a skeptic and force him to admit that ghosts exist."

hahahaha now you are the mind reader. My motives are no such thing.

[sinewave]

" You have this image of science being about smart guys in closed rooms agreeing with everything each other says. Real science is a battle field of people trying to get their ideas noticed."

I have no such image. Real science is what?..... Say it again....... "battle field"?. Now you are beginning to understand. You see on a battle field the prize goes to the winner. The winner is not always who you romantisise it to be. Plenty of wonderful ideas are swept under, bought up, kept hidden, stolen, killed, or defeated for a vast amount of other reason other than their validity. If aliens really did crash in Roswell ( I don't nescecerily believe that they did) do you not think the us government would not act exactly as everyone thinks they did. If cold fusion were prooven to be easy by some young sceintist, do you think he would be able to freely share his idea and defend it from peer review? How many battle fields have been won by sheer genius of arguing and rederic as poised to validity. I once taught a class how to juggle, yet I don't even no how.

I am not keen on the battle field analogy either. Science does not deal in absolutes, just probabilities. There are no winners or losers just things that are more or less likely to be true.

Your assertion that plenty of wonderful ideas being kept from us is a little disturbing and smacks of a CT mindset. Some people believe things like free energy and 200 MPG carburetors exist but are being kept from us by malevolent individuals or corporations. Is that where you are coming from on this point?

As for debating skills trumping true knowledge. That is a bit of a stretch. Generally speaking, ideas don't exist in a vacuum. It is truly difficult to hide discovery or to prevent others from independently making similar discoveries.

[White Crane Feather]

" It didn't occur to you that this would not be a problem for a skeptic, and indeed, mere acknowledgment of existence is not even a first step"

I have had no such dellusion this conversation is one of many. Just like I don't expect a fundamentalist to admit to the possibilit that Christ did not raise in the flesh, I do not expect a fundamaterislist to admit there might be ghosts. In fact even if one of you see one yourself plain as day you are not even going to believe it then unless a bunch of scientists agree with you...... Dosn't matter how real it was we both know that is not going to happen.

By the way this was never about ghosts it was about faith. And the denial screen materialists delute themselves with.

[White Crane Feather]

"I asked you why you were so hung up on acknowledgment and pointed out the utter lack of value in it as a process unto itself, and never got an answer. Why is it so important to you that people admit that ghosts exist, so important that as long as you get that, you are happy, and it doesn't matter that the argument is so weak it can be used with no change whatsoever to acknowledge the existance of alien mind rays and superintelligent clouds."

I usually skip asinine qestions were people are trying to pigion hole me. I'm not hung up on anything. I'm not even really discussing ghosts more what can be considered paranormal. The argument is weak from your perspective, because you are unable to step out of your box. If a large chunk of humanity had experienced alien mind rays or inteligent clouds it would be relevent. As it is other phenominon are much more widly reported and relevent.

[White Crane Feather]

"To be perfectly frank, if anyone here is acting in a dogmatic fashion, it is you. You have refused to waiver from your interpretation of science, even after having been regularly corrected on it. You have projected onto the people describing it attributes that you yourself are displaying, such as close-mindedness, and mockery. You have refused to acknowledge an answer to the motives behind a specific question you asked, after the specific question was answered. And here, in what is possibly the ultimate culmination of dogma, even after having gotten an honest answer, completely consistent with the system that you continually have been misrepresenting, you have simply gone into denial, with absolutely nothing more to offer than the cliched postulate of the dogmatic "No way! They would never do that!""

now this is just whinning ( now I'm mocking).

"Dogma from wiki

For other uses, see Dogma (disambiguation).

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or by extension by some other group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioner or believers. The term derives from Greek δόγμα "that which seems to one, opinion or belief"[1] and that from δοκέω (dokeo), "to think, to suppose, to imagine".[2] The plural is either dogmas or dogmata , from Greek δόγματα."

I do not consider my beleifs authoritative over yours, we have not even really discussed my beleifs other than my BELIF the you have a BELIF. Read the definition carefully. Oh, that's right you don't believe anything you calculate probabilities ( am I mocking again.... Sorry).

"You have refused to waiver from your interpretation of science, even after having been regularly corrected on it."

you have got to be kidding me. Right? Do you not see the irony here?

[White Crane Feather]

"Well, you keep saying that, but you never state why. It's just a postulate of yours. Why wouldn't science be able to fathom higher informational constructs (another term which I asked you to describe and which you did not). Why would science never be able to predict "life"? What is "Life"? Why would science decide it isn't possible? You keep making these absolute statements that we are supposed to blindly accept as being true. Why would faith force you to do that?

More to the point, how would whatever you call your system answer any of these questions? How would a non-reductionist process give us data on the above? Tell me, because I sincerely want to know. Please, define "life" as seen through your holistic system.

Again, how? How does induction answer the questions. I have explained the entire skeptical and scientific methodology process and how we come to gather data. Your turn. Show me how you can learn from induction. Show me how it is a more efficient system, or superior, or even that it can come up with answers that scientific methodology cannot.

In other words, put up or shut up. I've done my part defending my process; now it's your turn.

Forgive me to many question marks I'll do my best.

Induction is the oposite of reduction. Current scientific methodology atempts to reduce a phenominon by breaking it apart analyzing it's parts to define it. Then induce (predict) other phenominon from what is learned. This validates any theory that predicts things that are latter observed. Chemist makeing new substances that don't exist in nature do this. Higher information constructs and systems however cannot be predicted. Things that exist as combinations of information. Life, conciousness, ecologies if there could be sceince done by a hypothetical non living scientist with exactly our mode of thinking and technology would be unable to predict the potential fir biological life. Hell we still can't figure out how it got started and we know it happened. Furthermore let's say this hypothetical scientist is a brain cell. It would be impisible for the scientist to be aware of the brain itself other than induction. Our current science is incapable if exploring let's say divine concepts for many reasons, but the first is that it is busy breaking rocks apart to analyze sand to reluze it's standing on a mountain.

You want a system to acomplish more than the current to incude understanding of other higher informational places and life. But you can't. You are stuck being apart of it. Unless of course you can find a way to seperate.

I don't follow systems my friend, they are dangerouse. I offered you a chance to at the very least be able to argue skeptisism with at least some experience with some of the things on the otherside. It will either change you, make you more equiped for arguments like this, or reafirm your skeptisism.

Let me know

[aquatus1]

I'm having a little bit of a hard time following along without you using quote boxes. Is there anything in particular you would like to discuss first? That "expanded argument" thing and all...

[The Paranormal Skeptic]

I'm having a little bit of a hard time following along without you using quote boxes. Is there anything in particular you would like to discuss first? That "expanded argument" thing and all...

I agree, I would like to jump in but I have no idea what seeker is talking about.

[ShadowofaDoubt]

I'm beginning to think we are witnessing the fine "art" of trolling.

What seeker fails to grasp is that no skeptic here is stating any facts relating to the paranormal. He likens us to fundamentalists, yet he doesn't even understand out point of view. He claims that we take science on faith and deny any claims of the paranormal based solely on our world view (in which, we believe that science is all knowing and there is no room for new ideas like ghosts or OBEs), but, as we all know, that isn't the case. He believes, from the perspective of the scientific method, we do not have the tools to understand paranormal phenomena. That could be true, or it might not. He also pushes the highly romanticized idea of the scientific "giants" are keeping down the little guy, by not accepting their radical ideas. Who doesn't like to root for the underdog? But what are these notions based on?

This is a pointless en devour, to try and explain to seeker the terms he is misunderstanding (or choosing to misunderstand) and the people he is mislabeling. I don't recommended anyone joining in or continuing this discussion.

[White Crane Feather]

Hahahaha something like that. Yeah the conversation is prety much over. I can't use quote boxes. There is no function for it on my iPhone. If use the fullsight option it takes forever to do anything. My laptop stays at my business no real need to bring itt home. There is nothing going here except people keeping their heads in the sand. Nothing you and I havmt already hashed over paranormal skeptic, but it's much more entertaining with them because they get all emotional while you stay calm and logical.

Edited April 11, 2011 by Seeker79

[White Crane Feather]

I'm beginning to think we are witnessing the fine "art" of trolling.

What seeker fails to grasp is that no skeptic here is stating any facts relating to the paranormal. He likens us to fundamentalists, yet he doesn't even understand out point of view. He claims that we take science on faith and deny any claims of the paranormal based solely on our world view (in which, we believe that science is all knowing and there is no room for new ideas like ghosts or OBEs), but, as we all know, that isn't the case. He believes, from the perspective of the scientific method, we do not have the tools to understand paranormal phenomena. That could be true, or it might not. He also pushes the highly romanticized idea of the scientific "giants" are keeping down the little guy, by not accepting their radical ideas. Who doesn't like to root for the underdog? But what are these notions based on?

This is a pointless en devour, to try and explain to seeker the terms he is misunderstanding (or choosing to misunderstand) and the people he is mislabeling. I don't recommended anyone joining in or continuing this discussion.

"trolling" I'm not even sure what that means. Trust me I believe in what I'm saying. But that's usually what happens at the end. Symantics, spelling or grammar, or acusations of some sort. Once we are no longer talking about the subject it's just an argument. No fun:(

[ShadowofaDoubt]

Hahahaha something like that. Yeah the conversation is prety much over. I can't use quote boxes. There is no function for it on my iPhone. If use the fullsight option it takes forever to do anything. My laptop stays at my business no real need to bring itt home. There is nothing going here except people keeping their heads in the sand. Nothing you and I havmt already hashed over paranormal skeptic, but it's much more entertaining with them because they get all emotional while you stay calm and logical.

More troll bait. I don't think anyone here is going to fall for that.

[White Crane Feather]

I am not keen on the battle field analogy either. Science does not deal in absolutes, just probabilities. There are no winners or losers just things that are more or less likely to be true.

Your assertion that plenty of wonderful ideas being kept from us is a little disturbing and smacks of a CT mindset. Some people believe things like free energy and 200 MPG carburetors exist but are being kept from us by malevolent individuals or corporations. Is that where you are coming from on this point?

As for debating skills trumping true knowledge. That is a bit of a stretch. Generally speaking, ideas don't exist in a vacuum. It is truly difficult to hide discovery or to prevent others from independently making similar discoveries.

I'd like to think that. But to me that's wishful thinking. My back ground is in economics. Self interest and power often trumps nobility.There is proof that car companies bought up rights to eficient electric cars long ago. ( at least acording to some articles I read) Then sat on them. If the technologies were persued then. We would be ready to graduate by now.

Im no conspiracy theorist just a practical understanding of economics. It is believed the the armed forces are 40 years ahead of the rest of civilian technology. This is probably a necessary thing. Conspiracys or no conspiracys I'm not under the fluffy image that any instititution, government, Military, sceintific, religiouse, or scientific is some Nobel transparent group of people. I know better. No paranoia needed, in many instances these things are probably needed to ensure competative advantages.

Does any one know if military research sceintists use the same peer review systems civillians use?

[White Crane Feather]

I'm having a little bit of a hard time following along without you using quote boxes. Is there anything in particular you would like to discuss first? That "expanded argument" thing and all...

Let's go back to why materialists stop asking questions. Let me explaine. I'll use NDEs and OBEs bacsuse I am most familiar with them.

Hullucinations? The current materialistic theory is that because sensed presence and light feelings can be reproduced in the lab, and have specific areas of the brain that these things are associated with and will have a biochemical signature, that it invalidates it as a spiritual experience. Explanations range from a way for the mind to be comforted to some sort if dream.

This is a prime example of materialist dogma. Just because something has a physical representation does not mean it has materialistic meaning.

The question that should be asked now is why. Explanations range from a way for the mind to be comforted to some sort of dream.

If we are going to aply the entire body of scientific knowledge, we have to ask: why would evolution create the capacity to experience floating above your body? It's a very complicated cognative feat to experience weightlessness, why at death? Our knowledge of evolution tells us survival of the fitest to pass on genes. Floating above your body, talking to loved ones, tunnels of light don't help you to survive to pass on the propensity for future generations to do it..... Your dead. Only recent technology allows doctors to bring people back from these brinks of death, that's why they are more common.

Furthermore, it always makes me laugh when a scientist writes an article about doing something to the brain to artificially produce an experience. Obviously he is stimulating the brain for an experience that nature deemed important enough ( don't go crazy I'm not talking about an inteligent nature beyond evolution) to evolve a part of the brain to have the experience in the first place. If it's just a glitch or something, why such specific, crosscultural objective circumstances. Why not flying pink elephants or purple unicorns ( as skeptics are so fond of invoking)..... By the way. In real hullucinations people do see those kinds of things.

Materialist blinders stop at --- see it's in the brain...... It's in te brain..... I told you!!! scientific methodology is wonderful at answering how, but cannot begin to touch why. The question always lead back to the first cause. And cannot be understood scientifically.

[aquatus1]

Let's go back to why materialists stop asking questions. Let me explaine. I'll use NDEs and OBEs bacsuse I am most familiar with them.

This is why you get accused of trolling behaviour. You keep misrepresenting our position. No matter how often you repeat that we come to a conclusion and stop asking questions, it just isn't true. If it was, we wouldn't have advanced so dramatically over the last 500 years, unlike dogmatic faith-based beliefs which didn't advance all that much despite millenia to work in.

Hullucinations? The current materialistic theory is that because sensed presence and light feelings can be reproduced in the lab, and have specific areas of the brain that these things are associated with and will have a biochemical signature, that it invalidates it as a spiritual experience. Explanations range from a way for the mind to be comforted to some sort if dream.

No, actually. Not at all, actually. Spirituality doesn't have anything to do with it in the slightest way, shape, or form. Just because science knows how babies are born does not keep it from being a spiritual experience. Just because science knows why people fall into religious ecstasy does not keep it from being a spiritual experience.

Trying to find answers to why something happens does not required denial of the human response to it.

This is a prime example of materialist dogma. Just because something has a physical representation does not mean it has materialistic meaning.

Actually, it does. In addition to that, it can have other meanings still, including spiritual, and even religious. But regardless of other meanings, yeah, if there is a physical component, it will have a materialistic explanation.

The question that should be asked now is why. Explanations range from a way for the mind to be comforted to some sort of dream.

Yes. Because these are known situations in which people have experienced these sorts of symptoms before. Prior to including OBE's and NDE's into the pool of explanations, we would first have to confirm that they do indeed occur. To do that, we would need evidence that distinguishes these OBE's from regular hallucinations.

If we are going to aply the entire body of scientific knowledge, we have to ask: why would evolution create the capacity to experience floating above your body?

Why wouldn't it? Or more accurately, if such a thing occurred by random evolutionary chance, what sort of environmental factor would removed it from the gene pool? I can't think of any advantage or disadvantage it would give in terms of survival, so it would be fairly neutral as far as mutations go. There is really no reason why we should think that this ability did not evolve in the same way every other one of our abilities evolved: through random mutation.

It's a very complicated cognative feat to experience weightlessness, why at death? Our knowledge of evolution tells us survival of the fitest to pass on genes. Floating above your body, talking to loved ones, tunnels of light don't help you to survive to pass on the propensity for future generations to do it..... Your dead. Only recent technology allows doctors to bring people back from these brinks of death, that's why they are more common.

It may be a very complicated cognitive feat, but it is a ridiculously simple biological one. People can experience weightlessness for a variety of physical reasons, from the use of certain drugs, to certain mental afflictions, to asphyxiation. The last, in particular, is a very common (and somewhat reckless) high school sleepover game, where one person bends over deeply and breathes heavily for about a minute, then stands straight up as fast as possible. The lack of oxygen and blood leads to feelings ranging from euphoria, to weightlessness, to hallucinations, and on occasion, to unconsciousness.

Furthermore, it always makes me laugh when a scientist writes an article about doing something to the brain to artificially produce an experience. Obviously he is stimulating the brain for an experience that nature deemed important enough ( don't go crazy I'm not talking about an inteligent nature beyond evolution) to evolve a part of the brain to have the experience in the first place. If it's just a glitch or something, why such specific, crosscultural objective circumstances. Why not flying pink elephants or purple unicorns ( as skeptics are so fond of invoking)..... By the way. In real hullucinations people do see those kinds of things.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here. An OBE is just, as is pretty much everything else, a series of sensory input. Whether it comes from a genuine experience or from an induced hallucination makes no difference to the brain; it will detect it the same way. In the case of weightlessness, it isn't so much a matter of there being a specific "weightless" node in the brain, but rather of the same sensory inputs that tell you what weight is being scrambled. It is kind of like having a scale and weighing something, and then grabbing that thing and gently tugging up and down on it. The scale doesn't have some sort of built in mechanism that is registering intermittent weightlessness; it is just reacting to the scrambled data input it is receiving.

Materialist blinders stop at --- see it's in the brain...... It's in te brain..... I told you!!! scientific methodology is wonderful at answering how, but cannot begin to touch why. The question always lead back to the first cause. And cannot be understood scientifically.

Science has answered "why" more than once, and "why" is a pretty important factor in entire fields of academia, the first to come to mind being behavioural sciences. "Why" is simply another question to answer, no more, no less. You, evidently, place a great deal of importance on it. Science just considers it one of many.

And, again, this is why you are considered to be trolling. You continuously misrepresent science. You are implying in the above statement that the reason scientists claim the brain is responsible is because science refuses to accept there might be some other explanation, and moreover, refuses to look for any other explanations. This is incorrect, and it is why I mentioned before that you view science as a room full of stuffy suits agreeing with each other. Because this is precisely how you keep on describing it in your examples.

Science would indeed come to the conclusion that the symptoms are mental in nature. They would not do so because they refuse to acknowledge OBE'S, but rather because OBE's have not yet met the standards of acknowledgment. It isn't about blinders, but about the ability to gather data. If an answer does not provide data...then it isn't much of an answer. If OBE's do not provide any insight into the phenomena, then there is really no reason to consider them.

Let's flip the question around. Let's say that we decide that an OBE is responsible. What now? What data have we gathered from that, or what advancement have we made? What have we added to our core of knowledge?

Incidentally, I spent a month typing out QUOTE commands on my IPhone to keep my posts clear. Please, take the time to do so as well. It is difficult to read when you don't use quote boxes.

[sinewave]

I'd like to think that. But to me that's wishful thinking. My back ground is in economics. Self interest and power often trumps nobility.There is proof that car companies bought up rights to eficient electric cars long ago. ( at least acording to some articles I read) Then sat on them. If the technologies were persued then. We would be ready to graduate by now.

Im no conspiracy theorist just a practical understanding of economics. It is believed the the armed forces are 40 years ahead of the rest of civilian technology. This is probably a necessary thing. Conspiracys or no conspiracys I'm not under the fluffy image that any instititution, government, Military, sceintific, religiouse, or scientific is some Nobel transparent group of people. I know better. No paranoia needed, in many instances these things are probably needed to ensure competative advantages.

Does any one know if military research sceintists use the same peer review systems civillians use?

An ultra efficient electric car would hinge primarily on superior battery technology. Making electric motors efficient has not been terribly difficult or even amazing for decades. If car companies "bought up" such efficient battery designs they would surely have been deployed by now. In fact, at least one car company is involved in battery research at Argonne National Laboratory as we speak. Others are working through universities to the same end. If they had an ace-in-the-hole they would have played it.

I would think that scientists working on military projects would use the same peer review process but with a smaller group of peers because if the secrecy required. The Manhattan Project is a good example. Dozens of talented scientists were gathered at Los Alamos just for that purpose.

[Long_Gone]

WHAT WOULD I ASK A SKEPTIC? (so freaking simple)

So, you've never seen or experienced anything and yet you are obsessed. Are you freaking nuts?

The answer is even freaking simpler.

You hear about it in the news, You read it, You hear stories about it from your friends and people you might know. I've never had a personal experience myself. So i guess i should never worry about it because I've never experienced something myself and only people who have seen or experienced it should be "obsessed" with it, Even though the subject is quite fascinating. Which i think anybody will agree, any skeptic and any believer or anybody in between. We all want to know the answers. right?

I guess it's because people want to know the truth. What is causing these people to see these things?, Why would a person experience such things? Is it real, is it not?.