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Why not prove it?


XenoFish

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Just now, XenoFish said:

You are the resident self-proclaimed psychic. Can you do a better job at explain psychic abilities than the others haven't? Are you willing to enlighten us?

I have said it all a million times before, but (however psychic I am) I can't know which posts you've seen.

If Brexit is boring tomorrow, I'll post something. :tu:

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1 minute ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

If it couldn't be disproved, or conversely, couldn't be proved to be a hoax, or misidentified, that would go towards proving that there was 'something' beyond our science.

It may indicate that, my point was that Xeno would simply call it BS imo.

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Just now, acute said:

I have said it all a million times before, but (however psychic I am) I can't know which posts you've seen.

If Brexit is boring tomorrow, I'll post something. :tu:

I haven't seen any of them. Since you are obsessed with brexit, I'm almost willing to bet that I won't see you replying.

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1 minute ago, OverSword said:

It may indicate that, my point was that Xeno would simply call it BS imo.

Cute, but if the LHC finds a 'ghost' particle that acts consciously and with further study proves the existence of spirits/ghost. I wouldn't need to doubt. Telling me a story, providing a poorly done study or a shoddy youtube video doesn't actually prove anything. 

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6 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

You disregard the scientific method of determining whether a thing is true or not,

You assume that the scientific method must be able to determine whether something is true or not. That is an assumption. 

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2 hours ago, XenoFish said:

This has been something that has been pestering me for years now. I often read a claims of some extraordinary ability. Seeing ghost, telepathy, psychokinesis, etc. Whenever it is suggested that they offer to be studied, they refuse. Why? I mean if they can literally produce some supernatural/paranormal/psychic effect. Then they could change the worlds view on human biology and physics, yet nothing. It is almost if is the claim was false to begin with. So why bother making a claim in the first place? 

Do anyone else think about it this way?

How such abilities would benefit humanities view of nearly everything. And why supposed gifted people never change the skeptics minds. 

As you know personally, I've been on both sides of this argument, so I can understand the mindset somewhat of both views despite not fully agreeing with either.

Personally, I no longer hold a position either way on most issues pertaining to the spiritual, and no longer really care. Though I do want to point out that those who do make such claims actually believe that they have proven it. It's just that they think the rest of the world (though mostly the skeptic and scientific community) doesn't accept the "facts" for dogmatic reasons. Of course they haven't actually scientifically proven their beliefs as such, I'm just saying they think they have.

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4 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Cute, but if the LHC finds a 'ghost' particle that acts consciously and with further study proves the existence of spirits/ghost. I wouldn't need to doubt. Telling me a story, providing a poorly done study or a shoddy youtube video doesn't actually prove anything. 

:lol: So it will take the LHC finding a ghost to prove it?  :gun:

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6 minutes ago, Habitat said:

You assume that the scientific method must be able to determine whether something is true or not. That is an assumption. 

I'd say all the advancements of modern society have proven the merits of the scientific method. What's your point? :huh:

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What kind of arrogant fool believes their demand to have this manner of thing proven to them, will be fulfilled ? I would say a dishonest questioner, one that the person asking knows cannot be answered to their satisfaction, is only engaged in point-scoring, as in " I have granted you the opportunity to convince me, you have not, not because I am not open to proof, but you won't/can't provide it, therefore my position that such does not exist, is confirmed ".

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1 minute ago, OverSword said:

:lol: So it will take the LHC finding a ghost to prove it?  :gun:

Why not? If we can look at effects on that level, then why hasn't such a thing showed up. Plenty of dead people on this planet. 

Here is my problem. Beliefs alters perceptions, people see ghost because they expect to see ghost, that doesn't mean they are actually seeing ghost. Same goes for a medium. They have so thoroughly convinced themselves of having some psychic power that their perception of reality is askew. It is no different that Person A and Person B experience the same event, A says it was a miracle, B says it was good luck. It's a matter of perspective. Same event, different point of view. 

The problem is proving such abilities to be real. Trying to influence a D6 by rolling it 100 times is just a game of probability. Same goes for a coin toss. Unless someone can get 3 100 times or 100 heads or tails. Then it's just random chance. 

Just because someone see's a ghost, that doesn't mean they saw a ghost. If they hear a disembodied voice, doesn't mean it was a ghost. 

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1 hour ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

DO YOU NOT realize that if just ONE of the woo believing fantasists could demonstrate and PROVE "supernatural" abilities, how that would entirely change the paradigm of science?.

I've said many times that if there's something "spiritual" out there (or whatever you wanna call it), then it must operate by some sort of preset laws and by some sort of logic. Claiming something to be "supernatural" upends the entire field of science as a whole.

Once you accept that all natural laws can be completely ignored and superseded at any point by anything for whatever reason, then you might as well just give up on trying to make sense of the universe through science entirely, since nothing you study could ever be predictably constant and nothing woukd ever be perfectly reliable. Might as well just go back to the stone age.

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1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

why make a claim if you're not willing to prove a lot of people wrong? To me that is just an attention getting exercise. 

With many it is attention seeking from the gullible by the claimant to benefit financially and we have those who actually believe,  although not in gods shoes,  they are certainly washing and ironing is socks.

The facts are,  there are so many believers,  the claimants are not short of having an audience to impress and if there is money to be made,  all the better.

Lets take the evangelist,  they know if they shout "god and jesus loves you" loud enough,  people who believe in god and jesus will pay them to hear them 'convey' the message. 

The bible had messengers,  so how comforting for a believer to believe that they exist today?  

I do believe many of the charletans get to a stage where they :

A: Relish in the money they are racking in

B: begin to believe they own lies to the point where their power over others make them feel they are god

C: both of the above.

When a person is in a position where they have power over others and begin to believe their fantasy stories are real,  they reach a stage where they believe everybody will believe them. 

They then reach out further afield,  this is when they begin to get questioned and this is when they become defensive.

They have never been challenged before,  they have loads of believers and followers ( that to them is their proof ).

Suddenly they are asked for another kind of proof,  a kind which will confirm what they are preaching. This is where it goes t!ts up for them.

Some will be shocked that their power is being questioned,   as they truely believe they could not be wrong. How could they be wrong when they not only have lots of followers,  but they have the history behind the  bible in their hands ?

There will also be those who are not shocked at being questioned,  more like peeved off. Being surrounded and pampered by so many gullible people,  they reach the stage where they believe everybody is going to be as gullible.

 

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8 minutes ago, Habitat said:

What kind of arrogant fool believes their demand to have this manner of thing proven to them, will be fulfilled ? I would say a dishonest questioner, one that the person asking knows cannot be answered to their satisfaction, is only engaged in point-scoring, as in " I have granted you the opportunity to convince me, you have not, not because I am not open to proof, but you won't/can't provide it, therefore my position that such does not exist, is confirmed ".

It's not "arrogant" to ask for proof before believing in something. That's perfectly rational dude. If I told you this magic bean that I'm selling for a $1000 bucks would give you the powers of Superman, you wouldn't be arrogant to demand proof. You'd just be a sane human being.

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29 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

No, you do not respect science. You disregard the scientific method of determining whether a thing is true or not, in favor of your supernatural bias.

 

Please demonstrate a way to falsify ghosts. Or ESP. Or telekinetics.

I do respect science but understand its limitations. My interests are not limited to science (that would be scientism a thing I don't respect).

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1 minute ago, papageorge1 said:

I do respect science but understand its limitations. My interests are not limited to science (that would be scientism a thing I don't respect).

You don't have to believe that science is the end all be all solution to every question we face in order to know that believing every ghost story you hear at the drop of a hat is a bit silly and naive.

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5 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

I do respect science but understand its limitations. My interests are not limited to science (that would be scientism a thing I don't respect).

Not everything is about being proven by science. Some things boil down to just being proven by the claimant.

 

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2 hours ago, XenoFish said:

This has been something that has been pestering me for years now. I often read a claims of some extraordinary ability. Seeing ghost, telepathy, psychokinesis, etc. Whenever it is suggested that they offer to be studied, they refuse. Why? I mean if they can literally produce some supernatural/paranormal/psychic effect. Then they could change the worlds view on human biology and physics, yet nothing. It is almost if is the claim was false to begin with. So why bother making a claim in the first place? 

Do anyone else think about it this way?

How such abilities would benefit humanities view of nearly everything. And why supposed gifted people never change the skeptics minds. 

Oh Xeno, Xeno, Xeno...you should know better than to ask.

The reason no one can prove it because they know videos are too easy to fake, there are countless variables to consider and..the human brain and body simply cannot produce enough electrical energy to perform these feats. PLUS from a biological and evolutionary standpoint, such "abilities" are useless.

From my experience and observation, the human mind is very easy to deceive, we see, feel and hear what we want and humans are frustratingly stubborn, refusing to change or accept a different view even when there is insurmountable evidence pointing to the contrary.

Remember that one guy who claimed to have all these "speshul" powers? (Forgot his name..was on teh Jonny Carson Show once) and was supposedly going to show off to the audience his "abilities" so they tested him with the condition that he could not have any contact or foreknowledge of the objects he would be working with.

Not surprising that when it came to pay the proverbial piper he failed miserably then claimed it was a "bad" day. His success rate was worse than dismal as he resorted to "guessing" what container held certain objects.

Point being it is easy to hide behind words then demand everyone just blindly accept their assertions rather than admit they were just playing people for the innocently gullible fools that most are.

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people that make those claims usually do it for notoriety or money.  One doesn't need to show proof, just keep the conveyor belt full of new believers.

If Piney or Rockstar are on here, they can comment  I have known Indians that minister to people. They don't do miracle cures, make special claims, and they don't advertise.  Generally they receive a blanket and tobacco, or some food or gas money as a gift.  Never a fee.  They may be able to enlist the patients own mind in effecting an improvement or cure.  Knowing people and human behavior and convincing someone to help themselves by focusing attention on them and caring about them  is not a bad ability to have. We would consider that mundane wouldn't we?

Personally, if I had a real genuine paranormal talent, and a minimum of common sense, I would never say a word about it.  If I could teleport, remote view, walk through walls, use telekinesis, it would be a secret guarded with my life. 

Imagine what it would be like.  Half the governments and powerful entities in the world would want to control you and the other half would want to kill you.   Not pleasant.  

If anyone that claims a talent  is still around in a month or two, they don;t have any special talent.

 

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I'm a nerd who loves sci-fi and fantasy stuff. If you find mystical powers and magic and whatnot interesting, then just stick with that. No need to extrapolate those things out into the real world when there's a whole host of entertaining fiction you could apply it to.

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46 minutes ago, Aquila King said:

You don't have to believe that science is the end all be all solution to every question we face in order to know that believing every ghost story you hear at the drop of a hat is a bit silly and naive.

I do not believe every ghost story I hear at the drop of a hat.  I weigh the evidence in each case,

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1 minute ago, papageorge1 said:

I do not believe every ghost story I hear at the drop of a hat.  I weigh the evidence in each case,

As did I for years. There were many that I believed at the time that ended up fake and staged or naturally explained. Does that mean all are fake? No, not necessarily. It just showed me that just because something is convincing to me doesn't mean it's correct.

There are plenty of magic tricks I've seen that are convincing to me, yet they're still just magic tricks at the end of the day.

My overall point being that I don't know, and I don't quite care anymore. Certainty is often what blinds a person to the truth.

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48 minutes ago, freetoroam said:

Not everything is about being proven by science. Some things boil down to just being proven by the claimant.

 

Isn't that kind of what I said?

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1 hour ago, papageorge1 said:

LOL. I don't accept the Skeptics Dictionary as a reasonable source of information.

And the conveniences pile up.  It does clear up that your standard of 'evidence' is quite a bit different from mine.

What's too bad is, I think again, you talk around the subject and at a meta-level vaguely about 'the evidence' far more on this board at least than you do explaining why the evidence is so good.  It'd be cool if you could say, 'hey, there's a new study showing some evidence for paranormal thing x, let's check it out and see what we think' or 'there's a video of a phenomenon that can't be explained', but there doesn't seem to be much new (no, I don't count the existence of the various 'ghost hunter' tv shows as new evidence, unless it produced something compelling I'm unaware of).  I'd say that suggests the evidence is just too 'spontaneous' and rare right now to be thinking there's much to it.

You're of course just making stuff up with the 'biased by materialism' nonsense, why wouldn't someone want this stuff to be true?  It'd be cool if there were ghosts and special people with powers and such, it'd be fascinating (I'm sure you'd agree, I think it has a lot to do with your particular perspective on the evidence actually).  I used to be fascinated, and scared, of Bigfoot, and Nessie and such.  The possibility of UFOs and hauntings and demons and psychic stuff.  Then you eventually check it out and, I'm sorry, but it is fair to describe looking at what actually supports any of these things even existing as 'disappointing'.  The evidence we could have; unknown DNA with primate-like similarities, videos with audio of haunting phenomenon, a series of accurate predictions, etc.. it's just undeniable how weak what there is in comparison to what could and I think should be by now.

It's not that this stuff is just not amenable to controlled testing it's that there isn't anything that we even know requires an explanation beyond 'people are wrong about things sometimes', which we've got lots of evidence for. There is no big gigantic event or phenomenon that we know has ever occurred which make us suspect the paranormal; if you think there is one, feel free to name it.  Since we know people are wrong about things then paranormal beliefs and experiences misunderstood as such is exactly what I would expect.  Since it's just a misunderstanding, that fits perfectly with 'can't be tested in a controlled way' and 'spontaneous (like when no one is recording anything...)'; yes, things that don't exist can't be tested in a controlled way.  Some people would clearly like there to be something magical and super-mysterious about the world and would especially like a sign of something/anything after death, and we know if people want to believe something enough they can tend to not be unbiased about what they experience and remember (and in a lot of those cases there's nothing wrong with that, I know I do it).  That's just the way it is right now, maybe we will get some real evidence of this stuff, or somebody who can actually do something eventually. I'll bet as soon as you do you'll see how incorrect you are about the materialistic bias of scientists, even if that bias did exist it's no match for the possibility of fame.

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1 minute ago, Aquila King said:

As did I for years. There were many that I believed at the time that ended up fake and staged or naturally explained. Does that mean all are fake? No, not necessarily. It just showed me that just because something is convincing to me doesn't mean it's correct.

There are plenty of magic tricks I've seen that are convincing to me, yet they're still just magic tricks at the end of the day.

My overall point being that I don't know, and I don't quite care anymore. Certainty is often what blinds a person to the truth.

Well, my method is to judge likelihood based on everything I know. Seems the best way to go. I can rarely claim certainty.

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