Statistics and the Paranormal

[XenoFish]

1 hour ago, Guyver said:

the more I am convinced that it's all complete BS and contrived entertainment, lies, or hoaxes.

Which makes any actual and worth while investigation into the subject pointless. Even anecdotes are just stories. Personally I think 99.9% of the supposed paranormal and supernatural are just people's imaginations.

[AZDZ]

I've seen those too.

IMO, how they are faked is with some kind of green or blue screen special effect.

You know how some movies/series have special effects where in an actor is right there in the scene manipulating puppets yet are completely invisible to the cameras.

Just like that.

ETA: Some of the worst examples even have blurry blobs of the actors bleeding through.

Edited October 31, 2024 by AZDZ

[Abramelin]

On 10/28/2024 at 5:35 PM, XenoFish said:

When you look at this stuff long enough and there is more support in the mundane than the metaphysical, no reason the believe. 

I'm tempted to post such an experience, but it would be just another story. But no one could give me a reasonable explanation.

Edit:

Yeah, one explanation,  "You made it all up."

So why post it anyway?

Edited October 31, 2024 by Abramelin

[Tatetopa]

43 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Which makes any actual and worth while investigation into the subject pointless. Even anecdotes are just stories. Personally I think 99.9% of the supposed paranormal and supernatural are just people's imaginations.

I would say almost but not quite,  Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005) is Malcolm Gladwell's second book. It presents in popular science format research from psychology and behavioral economics on the adaptive unconscious: mental processes that work rapidly and automatically from relatively little information. It considers both the strengths of the adaptive unconscious, for example in expert judgment, and its pitfalls, such as prejudice and stereotypes..

I can quickly describe one of the examples I remember.  An experienced  race car driver in a big race like Le Mans suddenly slowed his car and pulled over toward  the side of the track.  Around the corner out of his sight was a wreck with several cars involved which he completely avoided. Some suggested the paranormal, a sixth sense or something mysterious. He agreed to be quizzed by a couple of researchers and he could recall nothing nor cite any reason for his behavior, he just did it.  He agreed to be hypnotized, and one memory came out that he had not been consciously aware of when being questioned.

In his experience, when he passed the grandstands, spectator's faces were turned toward him.  On this occasion, most were looking down the track. That was enough to tip him off to something unusual, even though he did not recall making a conscious observation.

I think some instances of what people call paranormal or unexplainable are neither.  They are similar to the driver's experience.  That lizard part of our brain attuned to survival and not balancing checkbooks, what is for dinner, or winning a race processes environmental observations and issues a command to the body to act that doesn't pass through the logical reasoning, distracted part of our consciousness.    That awareness is not infallible, a room might seem like a trap or an individual can seem creepy, or a shadow can cause us to start when there is nothing there.  Survival instincts giving a false positive allows an individual to survive and laugh it off.  Far better than not sensing danger or detecting ambushes or predators

JMO, a good investigation might uncover more clues about those apps in our brain we seldom use and forgot we have.

[Abramelin]

8 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

That lizard part of our brain attuned to survival and not balancing checkbooks, what is for dinner, or winning a race processes environmental observations and issues a command to the body to act that doesn't pass through the logical reasoning, distracted part of our consciousness. 

There's something else that influences our conscious decisions, and that is our socalled "second brain" in the guts (think: "gut feelings").

 

The gut-brain connection is complex and bidirectional. Signals pass both ways between your digestive system and central nervous system, and health or disease in one can affect the other. Key players in this connection include your enteric nervous system, your vagus nerve and your gut microbiome.

 

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/the-gut-brain-connection

https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/your-gut-second-brain

https://neuroscience.ubc.ca/our-second-brain-more-than-a-gut-feeling/

https://www.wired.com/story/gut-second-brain-health-glial-cells-digestion-disease-pain/

 

Edited October 31, 2024 by Abramelin

[XenoFish]

22 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

JMO, a good investigation might uncover more clues about those apps in our brain we seldom use and forgot we have.

That's about it though. It comes down to psychology. Our brains love making things familiar. The wind moving through and old house become a whisper or human/demonic voice. Same with seeing shapes in the dark. Our brains needed to do that a lot more at one point. I also think that instinct level is what 'creates' the paranormal experiences. We still have that hardware. 

29 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

So why post it anyway?

I posted a few of my experiences. Even my first NDE. After talking with family members my brain basically fabricated the stuff my awareness missed. Even the Halloween event a few years back was a self-induced hallucinatory experience.

[Tatetopa]

2 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

That's about it though. It comes down to psychology. Our brains love making things familiar. The wind moving through and old house become a whisper or human/demonic voice. Same with seeing shapes in the dark. Our brains needed to do that a lot more at one point. I also think that instinct level is what 'creates' the paranormal experiences. We still have that hardware. 

If that conclusion was widely publicized and widely accepted, my Tate meter tells me we would be a lot better off.

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, Tatetopa said:

If that conclusion was widely publicized and widely accepted, my Tate meter tells me we would be a lot better off.

I think the Papa-Meter holds the market for now. Gotta make that green off spooks, spectres, and other ghastly things. 

[Abramelin]

54 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I posted a few of my experiences. Even my first NDE. After talking with family members my brain basically fabricated the stuff my awareness missed. Even the Halloween event a few years back was a self-induced hallucinatory experience.

My experience was different, maybe.

My father died on the 12th of june 1977. We were both born on the same day of the year, the 4th of July.

Then, some months before my 21th birthday, 1978, I had a dream.

In that dream my father showed up with a black transporter bike. A strong bike. My father 'told' me the bike was second hand, but still a good bike. There was only one problem with the bike: the saddle was a bit wobbly.

 

Then it was my birthday, july 4th 1978, and... my mother gave me a ... black transporter bike.

I loved it.

And... the bike had only 1 problem: the saddle was wobbly.

 

Many years later I asked my Ma about that bike. I asked her if it was second hand. "No", she said.

And then I told her about my dream.

Edited October 31, 2024 by Abramelin

[openozy]

11 hours ago, TashaMarie said:

And yet many believers claim they were hardened sceptics who did not believe in the paranormal at all.  One would say very closed to the concept.

And you will find they experienced this by surprise, when they actually relaxed their skeptical minds.

[openozy]

10 hours ago, XenoFish said:

Except the proof is just a matter of perception and our perception is imperfect.

But I have no interest in proving any of it to anyone else.

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, openozy said:

But I have no interest in proving any of it to anyone else.

And that's absolutely fine. You're not slapping a 102% paranormal, 32.5% hoax on anything. 

[TashaMarie]

12 hours ago, openozy said:

And you will find they experienced this by surprise, when they actually relaxed their skeptical minds.

And how exactly did they relax their sceptical minds? 

[openozy]

1 hour ago, TashaMarie said:

And how exactly did they relax their sceptical minds? 

Probably because they weren't paying attention, how to you relax Tash .😀

Edited November 1, 2024 by openozy

[Opus Magnus]

On 10/28/2024 at 5:54 AM, Abramelin said:

I’m very much an empirical, data, statistics, and science type of guy. So, it might be a surprise to learn that I’ve gone ghost hunting a number of times. Now, I’m not a paranormal enthusiast. I’m definitely a skeptic. However, in my view, being skeptical about something does not preclude collecting data about it. I also have friends I trust completely who are sure they’ve experienced paranormal activity. Plus, I don’t need much of an excuse to try something new and unusual!

Three of us skeptical ghost hunters have spent the night by ourselves in a variety of supposedly haunted prisons and insane asylums. We do the standard “lights out” investigations. That’s where you make your way around with nothing but flashlights! The idea is that your senses are most sensitive in these conditions to detect paranormal activity.

Using the statistics mindset of collecting a good amount of data, we bring a lot of equipment: still cameras, audio recorders, video cameras, and electro-magnetic field (EMF) detectors. Our approach is to make serious efforts to debunk anything unusual that we experience, either on the spot or by reviewing the evidence later.

https://statisticsbyjim.com/fun/ghost-hunting-statistics/

A lot of statistics is asking people about what they believe, and there are protocols in place to restrict error.  A company might ask consumers how they rate a product.  There are also scientific ways to use statistics for qualitative data like if people have experienced ghosts.  Bias can be reduced in different ways.  You wouldn't gather sample information about ghosts from a paranormal forum like this, or from a forum that is full of skeptics.  This would be sampling bias, and you would want to gather information from unbiased groups.  Interviewer bias should also be eliminated, which is how the question is designed.  It shouldn't be pro-ghost or pro-skeptic.  There shouldn't be incentives to poll one way or another.  The sample should not be taken in a way where people might be scared to poll one way or another¹.  There is a margin of error that is calculated from the sample information, and a statistic of paranormal encounters is scientifically valid research.

1. Jenny Gutbezahl, "5 Types of Statistical Bias to Avoid in Your Analyses," Harvard Business School: Online, June 13, 2017, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/types-of-statistical-bias

[Wakka25]

On 10/31/2024 at 1:16 PM, XenoFish said:

Which makes any actual and worth while investigation into the subject pointless. Even anecdotes are just stories. Personally I think 99.9% of the supposed paranormal and supernatural are just people's imaginations.

What about video evidence?