Do You Remember the First Time?

[Timothy]

4 minutes ago, Habitat said:

There is no logic in assuming that something that always evades scrutiny, is impossible, does not exist. is just a convenient excuse. That is the logic I see on display here, from people who call themselves sceptics, but are really just people trying to have a prejudice confirmed. True science makes no such assumption.

Don’t focus on this and disregard the rest of my post.

I used to be open to many more things. The believers here have changed that.

Focus on that. 

[XenoFish]

3 minutes ago, Timothy said:

I used to be open to many more things. The believers here have changed that.

Same here. The more research and discussion the less and less I believe.

[Habitat]

Just now, Timothy said:

Don’t focus on this and disregard the rest of my post.

I used to be open to many more things. The believers here have changed that.

Focus on that. 

More flawed logic. I'm not sure who you are referring to, but if the village idiot says he saw a flying saucer, ultimately doesn't bear on whether he actually did. 

[Timothy]

14 minutes ago, Habitat said:

More flawed logic. I'm not sure who you are referring to, but if the village idiot says he saw a flying saucer, ultimately doesn't bear on whether he actually did. 

That’s exactly the issue. 

[Habitat]

8 minutes ago, Timothy said:

That’s exactly the issue. 

It is only an issue if there is something important riding on the reportage. If the village idiot says my house is on fire, I will investigate, but if he says it has turned into a marshmallow, I'll ignore the fool. Why is it important there be no "paranormal" ?

[Timothy]

2 hours ago, Habitat said:

It is only an issue if there is something important riding on the reportage. If the village idiot says my house is on fire, I will investigate, but if he says it has turned into a marshmallow, I'll ignore the fool. Why is it important there be no "paranormal" ?

So, important or not. Why no evidence? 

If the village idiot said the apartment was on fire, I’d check too. 

Plenty of village idiots on UM. 

[Habitat]

5 minutes ago, Timothy said:

So, important or not. Why no evidence? 

If the village idiot said the apartment was on fire, I’d check too. 

Plenty of village idiots on UM. 

The temptation to answer that with, "because it ain't there", is not one that should be surrendered to, it makes ample sense to me, that that which is "altogether other" should not necessarily have to conform to our normal expectations, or at least the assumption that it ought to do, should not be made.

[Scholar4Truth]

9 hours ago, Habitat said:

There is no logic in assuming that something that always evades scrutiny, is impossible, does not exist. is just a convenient excuse. That is the logic I see on display here, from people who call themselves sceptics, but are really just people trying to have a prejudice confirmed. True science makes no such assumption.

That's why I find a problem with hard-cold rationalism. What is rational to one person maybe not rational to another person. It all comes down to how one interprets the evidence due to one's presuppositions.

[macqdor]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12111749/Taxi-drivers-in-tsunami-disaster-zone-report-ghost-passengers.html

 

Quote

Taxi drivers working in towns in north-east Japan that were devastated in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami are reporting picking up "ghost passengers".

 

[stereologist]

On 8/18/2019 at 1:50 AM, papageorge1 said:

Human testimony is reliable more than it is fallible.

Well temporary phenomena does not lend itself normally to permanent tangible evidence although I think investigators and on rare occasions regular people record events. 

 

Not true at all. Human testimony is unreliable. A simple game of people in a circle whispering something shows how unreliable people are.

One of the main problems is people reporting something unexpected. They get the facts quite wrong from details to even the overall events.

Consider an example. Mass shootings. How often are there reports of multiple shooters when it turns out there was a single shooter. It is often. 

Consider another example. Phoenix Lights. That happened slowly. It took time yet witnesses gave conflicting reports on how many lights there were, the color of the lights, whether the craft was low or high, the arrangement of the lights, the shape of the craft, how many craft were there, the speed of the craft, the sound vs quiet, whether stars could be seen passing between the lights.

Regardless of what explanation is decided upon the simple fact is that human testimony is unreliable.

[papageorge1]

2 minutes ago, stereologist said:

 

Regardless of what explanation is decided upon the simple fact is that human testimony is unreliable.

And I hold the input from our senses is usually very reliable. We'd be extinct as a species if it wasn't. 

Now when I judge testimony I consider it can be imperfect too. To dismiss consistent reports of various types of unusual phenomena because human testimony is unreliable is certainly a mistake.

There is a sensible middle ground between blindly accepting and blindly dismissing unusual claims.

All of this should factor into a serious consideration.

[macqdor]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12111749/Taxi-drivers-in-tsunami-disaster-zone-report-ghost-passengers.html

 

Quote

Consider an example. Mass shootings. How often are there reports of multiple shooters when it turns out there was a single shooter. It is often. 

Your comparing apples to oranges.  The report of multiple shooters in a shooting tragedy is result of several different factors.  

• Multiple law enforcement arriving on the scene - and the mass flux of incoming information. 
• Multiple source (coming from several different vantage points)
• Individuals non-familiar with the way bullets sound in a closed environment.
• the mindset of its best to assume the worse case scenario (mass shooters on scene)  is unfolding vs. being to relaxed with the idea of just one shooter
• .........etc.

Its not a case of miss-remembering.  Its a case of confusion in the midst of chaos.   

 

Human beings by a large percentage are accurate in their reporting.

Witness testimony is held in high regard in reporting incidents be it good or bad.

 

Society has come along quite nicely with this concept. Not perfect.  But not horrible and unreliable as you try to describe.

@stereologist

[stereologist]

10 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

And I hold the input from our senses is usually very reliable. We'd be extinct as a species if it wasn't. 

Now when I judge testimony I consider it can be imperfect too. To dismiss consistent reports of various types of unusual phenomena because human testimony is unreliable is certainly a mistake.

There is a sensible middle ground between blindly accepting and blindly dismissing unusual claims.

All of this should factor into a serious consideration.

You can make up whatever you want. The fact is that evidence shows your opinion to be wrong.

Your suggestion that extinction is the result is clearly wrong. Being careful or assuming danger when there is none is what leads organisms to survive.

Here again you go with the unsupported opinion that there is consistency. You've never bothered to show any consistency in anything. I'll accept that your claims of consistency are rubbish you try to slide in to the discussion when that is not the case. I'm not blindly dismissing your claim. I'm pointing out that you are unable to support the things you state.

 

[stereologist]

11 minutes ago, macqdor said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12111749/Taxi-drivers-in-tsunami-disaster-zone-report-ghost-passengers.html

 

Your comparing apples to oranges.  The report of multiple shooters in a shooting tragedy is result of several different factors.  

• Multiple law enforcement arriving on the scene - and the mass flux of incoming information. 
• Multiple source (coming from several different vantage points)
• Individuals non-familiar with the way bullets sound in a closed environment.
• the mindset of its best to assume the worse case scenario (mass shooters on scene)  is unfolding vs. being to relaxed with the idea of just one shooter
• .........etc.

Its not a case of miss-remembering.  Its a case of confusion in the midst of chaos.   

 

Human beings by a large percentage are accurate in their reporting.

Witness testimony is held in high regard in reporting incidents be it good or bad.

 

Society has come along quite nicely with this concept. Not perfect.  But not horrible and unreliable as you try to describe.

@stereologist

In other words witnesses are unreliable. All you've done here is support my contention that witnesses are unreliable and given reasons for why they might be unreliable.

 

The list does not cover the quiet night of the Phoenix Lights. Care to give a reason that the Phoenix Lights were inconsistent and unreliable? Here is the unedited post I made.

Quote

Not true at all. Human testimony is unreliable. A simple game of people in a circle whispering something shows how unreliable people are.

One of the main problems is people reporting something unexpected. They get the facts quite wrong from details to even the overall events.

Consider an example. Mass shootings. How often are there reports of multiple shooters when it turns out there was a single shooter. It is often. 

Consider another example. Phoenix Lights. That happened slowly. It took time yet witnesses gave conflicting reports on how many lights there were, the color of the lights, whether the craft was low or high, the arrangement of the lights, the shape of the craft, how many craft were there, the speed of the craft, the sound vs quiet, whether stars could be seen passing between the lights.

Regardless of what explanation is decided upon the simple fact is that human testimony is unreliable.

 

[stereologist]

7 hours ago, macqdor said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/12111749/Taxi-drivers-in-tsunami-disaster-zone-report-ghost-passengers.html

 

 

Oh brother. This is an old urban legend being retold. It's the phantom hitchhiker tale being told by an undergraduate student.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_hitchhiker

It's an old ghost story.

[macqdor]

Witnesses are reliable. 

One word: subpoena 

Quote

A subpoena (/səˈpiːnə/; also subpœna or supenna) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. ... subpoena ad testificandum orders a person to testify before the ordering authority or face punishment.

 

[stereologist]

10 minutes ago, macqdor said:

Witnesses are reliable. 

One word: subpoena 

 

Witnesses are unreliable. A subpoena does not mean reliable

[macqdor]

I disagree totally. There are many tools available to determine if a witness account is reliable or not. Overall the power and concept of retelling what you saw, felt, heard or experienced is one of the major pillars of our society.

Humans are intelligent.  What's more intelligent than us? Our brains. Our senses.

It's how we got to where we are now.

 

[stereologist]

Sooner or later people turn to the court systems to pretend that courts using witnesses demonstrates reliability.

Courts are relying less and less on witness testimony as more people are shown to be innocent. Courts want the statements of witnesses to be backed up with evidence.

https://nobaproject.com/modules/eyewitness-testimony-and-memory-biases

Quote

Eyewitnesses can provide very compelling legal testimony, but rather than recording experiences flawlessly, their memories are susceptible to a variety of errors and biases. They (like the rest of us) can make errors in remembering specific details and can even remember whole events that did not actually happen.

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/supreme-court-and-eyewitness-testimony-perry-v-new-hampshire

Quote

The American Judicature Society study found that even when lineups were conducted using procedures shown to lead to fewer mistaken identifications, witnesses identified a "filler" 12.2 percent of the time. The courts must therefore strike a balance between allowing the introduction of eyewitness testimony that can be crucial to the prosecution's case and protecting defendants from unreasonably unreliable evidence.

Notice that this was in a controlled environment using techniques to reduce errors.

[stereologist]

9 minutes ago, macqdor said:

I disagree totally. There are many tools available to determine if a witness account is reliable or not. Overall the power and concept of retelling what you saw, felt, heard or experienced is one of the major pillars of our society.

Humans are intelligent.  What's more intelligent than us? Our brains. Our senses.

It's how we got to where we are now.

 

Actually, you are wrong There are no tools other than evidence. 

It doesn't matter if it is as you call it a major pillar, it is still unreliable. The rest of your post has no bearing on reliability.

[stereologist]

Here is your reliability:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project

Quote

The work of the Innocence Project has led to the freeing of more than 362 wrongfully convicted people based on DNA, including 20 individuals who spent time on death row, and the finding of 158 real perpetrators.

Quote

The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a study by the United States Department of Justice and United States Senate, in conjunction with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which found that incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a factor in over 70% of wrongful convictions.

There we have it. Eyewitnesses led to long term incarceration and even death sentences.

[stereologist]

https://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/innocenceclinic/Pages/wrongfulconvictions.aspx

Quote

Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-convicting-the-innocent/2015/07/24/260fc3a2-1aae-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html

Quote

How many people are convicted of crimes they did not commit? Last year, a study I co-authored on the issue was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It shows that 4.1 percent of defendants who are sentenced to death in the United States are later shown to be innocent: 1 in 25.

Even when people understand that their testimony can lead to someone's death they still pour out their testimony which is unreliable.

So how are these cases fixed? With evidence.

[macqdor]

Ah good old google. Once again your cherry picking the analysis. To suit your argument. No one said witness testimony by itself in a court system was 100% reliable.  I said in society.  The court system is not society. It's one aspect of it. But not the only aspect. 

People give disposition every day at work. At school.  Over different things that have to do with what they saw, felt or heard. Decisions made at a moments notice based on the data reaching the human eye.

Majority of people behind bars are behind bars for a good reason.  Witness testimony and data put them there.

The only reason u dont believe in ghosts, etc is because u havent seen one.  The day u do I promise your low perception of witness testimony will change. You'll switch sides.

We all think the others persons account is suspect until it happens to us. Low and behold we suddenly switch teams.

 

 

[stereologist]

16 minutes ago, macqdor said:

Ah good old google. Once again your cherry picking the analysis. To suit your argument. No one said witness testimony by itself in a court system was 100% reliable.  I said in society.  The court system is not society. It's one aspect of it. But not the only aspect. 

People give disposition every day at work. At school.  Over different things that have to do with what they saw, felt or heard. Decisions made at a moments notice based on the data reaching the human eye.

Majority of people behind bars are behind bars for a good reason.  Witness testimony and data put them there.

The only reason u dont believe in ghosts, etc is because u havent seen one.  The day u do I promise your low perception of witness testimony will change. You'll switch sides.

We all think the others persons account is suspect until it happens to us. Low and behold we suddenly switch teams.

 

 

Once again you have nothing. Your position is without merit and all you can do is post your own failed opinion.

You were the one that brought in the court system and we see it is unreliable. Had you read any of the articles I posted you would know that there are many people convicted wrongly of crimes they did not commit. The rate for lesser offenses has increased false convictions.  Witness testimony falsely convicted people. You were the one to bring this into the discussion. Here is what you posted when you were so very, very wrong "Witnesses are reliable. One word: subpoena "

I don't believe in ghosts because I don't believe in things that are based solely on stories. I would like to see some evidence. What we do know is that people often think they see things and are wrong about what they've seen.

They can't get the number of things right. How many shooters? One or two? How many lights? Is it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or something different?

Was it close or far? Was it silent or noisy? Was it here or there?  Witnesses are unreliable as I have shown.

The suggestion now is that I have not seen something. How do you know that? DO you have any evidence or is this just another unwarranted, unsupported, guess by those with an agenda?

[macqdor]

Quote

The suggestion now is that I have not seen something. How do you know that? DO you have any evidence or is this just another unwarranted, unsupported, guess by those with an agenda?

I admit it is kind of broad but I stand by it. I based my assumption on your wordings, beliefs,posts, responses here and elsewhere.

Until people see and experience things themselves there never going to believe.

Its the old cliche of "seeing is believing"

 

we all subscribe to that belief albeit at different levels.