People who see the paranormal; mentally ill, hoaxters, or the 'placebo' effect?

GerryDerpy

Nozz I am so happy that you put the time into explaining it so well.

dubjay

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

dubjay wrote: »

just because science cannot prove it does not mean it doesn't exist.

Further however, just because science fails to find ANY evidence for a claim absolutely does not mean the claim is true either. While your sentence is pedantically entirely correct..... it actually says nothing useful.

dubjay wrote: »

"just because i cannot prove a after life it must mean it doesn't  exist"

Where are you citing that from exactly?

dubjay wrote: »

i would not be so quick to judge or mock such things unless of course you have knowledge other wise please enlighten us or can prove them wrong.

There is only one judgement I can offer, or need offer, for an unsubstantiated claim and that is merely to point out THAT it is an unsubstantiated claim. What other judgement is required?

. im not against science but dont use it as proof. google a guy called Sadhguru and Deepak Chopra they seem to hold a lot more wisdom and knowledge than a lot of scientists i know and have seen

Wibbs

dubjay wrote: »

Deepak Chopra they seem to hold a lot more wisdom and knowledge than a lot of scientists i know and have seen

Ha... haha... hahahhahahahhahahaha. oh wait, you're serious? Chopra is a chancer of the first grade. Mix up talk of quantum stuff™ with an accent that sounds exotic to the sofa bound Oprah worshipping chubby suburban sweatshirt mammy of Anytown USA and watch the coin roll in.

Other classics now available from your favourite artists The Organic Dreamcatchers as a boxset from KTel records include, "You get from the universe what you put in", "Live in the Now(Tolle mix)", "Lose weight with chanting", "Buddhism in an Afternoon", "Crystal Healing"(feat. guests The Chakras) and many many more. Includes the smash hit "The Secret". All for 49.99! If you order now you'll get a free Aura Chart at no extra cost! not available in stoooores.

Chopra also has opined about how India has been well served by the caste system. An easy opinion to hold if, like Chopra, you're from the Kshatriya caste. His 'wisdom' is borrowed from better minds and repackaged to appeal to the gullible new age westerner, none of it is his to claim as his own.

railer201

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Who says they did not consider the possibility? That is an assumption I see often..... they do not think it is a ghost..... so automatically that means they must never have considered the possibility.

Interesting the mind set that must be required to jump from "They do not agree with my position" to "They must therefore never have considered my position"

Never seems to occur to them that they in fact DID consider the possibility...... at enormous and great length.............. and came to the conclusion that it was an entirely unsubstantiated possibility, not supported by anything at all, and therefore they do not subscribe to the idea.

There is a CHASM of difference between recognizing there is zero substantiation for X and acknowledging the possibility of X. I think it POSSIBLE there is a god, an after life, aliens with anal obsessions abducting our citizens as some REALLY long term prelude to invasion, and that consciousness can lift off the brain at the moment of death and go wandering around in some ephemeral ghostly form.

But acknowledging that all those things are POSSIBLE does not in any way prevent my from also acknowledging the not just slight, but COMPLETE, lack of any substantiation for the truth of them either....................................

Well that's exactly the point of the post above where the pilot does meet a deceased colleague wandering around, as you put it. So what do you make of that anecdote then ? If you discount it as a viable possibility, then explain why and what other explanation would you offer ? Let's assume the story as recounted is true, I did actually watch this programme on the Discovery Channel some twenty years back.

PS - I had forgotten we had this conversation before in A&A and here was your reply:-

There is nothing remarkable at play there. What IS remarkable however is that someone can have a conversation with a person who demonstrably could not have been there and people rush to peddle this as evidence for an after life when what they SHOULD be rushing to do is inform the person in question that discussions with people who were not, and could not, have been there is a symptom that could be indicative of any number of underlying medical or psychological conditions. And he should be seeking the advice of numerous medical authorities, not the consultation of journalists.

On what basis are you doubting the mental health of the pilot in question ? He saw the ghost of a deceased colleague, there are countless such testimonies by rational sane people. I think your problem is really that such anecdotes just don't square with atheist thinking.

dubjay

they seem to be doing a lot more for humanity and good than just sitting behind a keyboard slagging off what they dont know about.. sound familiar.. Choopra is a scientist or do you not take there word as you now what external proof did you say you had again also what do you have against people who are successful. unless of course your golden keyboard there holds all the answers.. ha    ha   ha..(childish) if you cant answer a question properly then dont or just stay quiet

dubjay

yeah some rock star who did you say you played for hahahahah

Wibbs

dubjay wrote: »

they seem to be doing a lot more for humanity and good than just sitting behind a keyboard slagging off what they dont know about.. sound familiar..

There is a long list of medical professionals and scientists that have straight out called Chopra a quack and charlatan.

Choopra is a scientist

He's a medical doctor. Any science qualifications he has he gave himself.

or do you not take there word as you now what external proof did you say you had again also what do you have against people who are successful. unless of course your golden keyboard there holds all the answers.. ha    ha   ha..(childish)

I have no idea what you're on about there.

if you cant answer a question properly then dont or just stay quiet

*Translation* if you don't agree with me, stay quiet.

dubjay wrote: »

yeah some rock star who did you say you played for hahahahah

I have no idea what you're on about there. Part II.

the_syco

I view them the same as people who believe in "god".

I view them as mentally ill.

Ipso

Wibbs wrote: »

Ha... haha... hahahhahahahhahahaha. oh wait, you're serious? Chopra is a chancer of the first grade. Mix up talk of quantum stuff™ with an accent that sounds exotic to the sofa bound Oprah worshipping chubby suburban sweatshirt mammy of Anytown USA and watch the coin roll in.

Other classics now available from your favourite artists The Organic Dreamcatchers as a boxset from KTel records include, "You get from the universe what you put in", "Live in the Now(Tolle mix)", "Lose weight with chanting", "Buddhism in an Afternoon", "Crystal Healing"(feat. guests The Chakras) and many many more. Includes the smash hit "The Secret". All for 49.99! If you order now you'll get a free Aura Chart at no extra cost! not available in stoooores.

The negativity is strong in this one. I can send you some moon dust to align your chakra if you'd like.

Your Face

I was invited to a lecture on Theoretical Physics once.

Now that was some far-out stuff.

Best to be an open-minded skeptic I think.

Hermy

jeanjolie wrote: »

Unlike our American counterparts, it doesn't seem (thankfully) that we get people here who believe in the paranormal...

Go into any Catholic church on Sunday morning and the place will be full of people who believe in the paranormal.

jigglypuffstuff

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Which is why I did not describe it so. The description I offered was a good one, so I am not sure why you are instead discounting a description I did not offer.

Again: Open Mindedness is nothing more than the willingness to give something credence, if the substantiation suggests you should. Regardless of whether you like the claim, or it's implications, or not. It is the willingness to change your mind, if the evidence suggests you should. Nothing more.

Calling people close minded, as many do, simply because they do not believe some random claim you make......... is a misuse of the term.



I have said nothing about a video, you are mistaking me for someone else you are having a conversation with. I was talking about other statements you have made.



AGAIN with your "authority" issue. You never discuss evidence, just credentials. This is not a good thing. Though it is comical that you deride him for being a "Medical Doctor" before citing another person who is a Professor of Psychiatry. Because yea that makes you an authority on the subject. Not. Especially given his "work" on the subject mostly centers around a book filled with little more than personal anecdotes about NDE. A book criticized in the The American Journal of Psychology for making many claims, but evidencing none of them.

Once again: Parnia constructed a sound and useful methodology for investigating OBE and the results of his study was that he found NOTHING. At all. Nothing came of the study that suggested any paranormal aspect of OBE was real. There was absolutely no basis from the study to think people feeling like they were floating outside their body actually were.

Discussing his credentials, or lack of them, says nothing despite your obsession with that approach. Discuss the EVIDENCE, which was..... zero.

Credentials are vital, unless you are going to let your mechanic give you a prostate exam , which I doubt....you'd better jump off the narrative that they aren't important..

Credentials are what lead to informed investigation....

All ill say is theres plenty said in that video...and the biggest one is that materialistic science is not explaining NDE's anytime soon....Sam Parnia (your friend) is mentioned too...

Also, while we are on the topic of being open minded....

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yea, interestingly I have never converted many people away from religion. But those that I DID convert few of them were from rational attempts to dissuade them from their belief.

Rather the vast majority were the result of me sitting down with them, buying them a bible (because despite their alleged beliefs they did not even bother to own one) and teaching them exactly what it is they were claiming to believe.

And nearly every person I did that with basically ended up saying "I am meant to believe WHAT? Yea no thanks" and basically left the church and faith entirely.

You wrote that didn't you?

So on top of proselytising to people on behalf of your AAI organisation * cough* church * cough*, and wanting to get them to abandon their religion, and messing around with what Christians consider sacred (eucharistic), you expect me to believe you're open minded and objective?? Sorry I dont buy it

You have your agenda imo , it's evident from the above... And it's the farthest thing from an open minded one..

I respectfully think we'll leave our discussion there...

riffmongous

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Not sure even many Catholics know what to consider it. I have a collection of their magic crackers in a drawer somewhere that I was experimenting on once and I spoke with a load of Catholics in that time.

They seemed to fall into three main groups. One group thought the ceremony was entirely symbolic only, nothing more. Another group thought a real but spiritual (and hence conveniently entirely undetectable) change occurs in the crackers. And a third group thought some very real actual physical change occurred in the crackers (the group my "study" was aimed at).

I could not estimate how relatively big each of the groups were, but that they were not all even remotely on the same page was evident.

You told some priests you had desecrated a host and they just played along with your 'experiment'? They can't have been all that priestly so

nozzferrahhtoo

dubjay wrote: »

im not against science but dont use it as proof.

I am open to your suggestions on alternative ways to seperate abject nonsense from reality and truth. But simply "taking some loud mouths word for it" is not one of the alternates I am likely to consider.

dubjay wrote: »

google a guy called Sadhguru and Deepak Chopra

No need to google them. I am PAINFULLY aware of who they are. And they have no wisdom at all that I can discern.

Take Chopra for example. This is a guy who believes that the moon only exists when people are looking at it, and when no one is looking at it then it only exists as a "fuzzy set of possibilities" or something. He thinks consciousness creates the universe in other words.

And he is a man so dishonest and slimey that he signed up to have a debate on the existence of god one time. He had the whole debate, lost it very badly, and then somewhere towards the end of the debate pretended he had been debating something else entirely.

Basically he decided to announce at the end of the debate he was not debating the existence of "god" at all but he was talking about "g.o.d." which he then defined as "Generational orientated distribution" or something.

In that same debate, during audience Q+A, an actual Astro Physicist stood up and said that the terms Chopra had been using throughout the night, and how he had been using them, were entirely bogus. Basically Chopra uses buzz words that he thinks no one understands (quantum, he LOVES the word quantum) so that he can make it look like HE does.

So by all means regale me with the knowledge and wisdom you think Chopra holds, but be warned I come to that conversation quite prepared and informed.

dubjay wrote: »

they seem to be doing a lot more for humanity and good than just sitting behind a keyboard slagging off what they dont know about.. sound familiar..

Yet the only one going on about anything they know little about here is you, so not sure what your point is. I think I have demonstrated on numerous occasions that many of the areas mentioned on this thread are ones I know quite a lot about. So you can put the Dunning Kruger Syndrome aside for today I think.

dubjay wrote: »

Choopra is a scientist

He is a writer of new age self help books with a background in training as a medical doctor. I do not think he has spent as much time as you might expect in labs doing what scientists do, or getting published in many refutable peer reviewed journals of science.

nozzferrahhtoo

riffmongous wrote: »

You told some priests you had desecrated a host and they just played along with your 'experiment'? They can't have been all that priestly so

Well I think we have learned from the Clergy Project that there are a number of people working in the clergy who have lost their belief (or never had it) in gods and the tenets of their religion.

But that aside I think such priests have a thicker skin than you give them credit for. The ones I talked to at least. They seemed to realize that the true path of Christianity lies in the "by their fruits you will known them" style of thinking.

So rather than getting needlessly and ineffectually uppity or haughty, they simply stay calm, give their opinion and knowledge, say their peace, and hope that they themselves represent the faith well so as to inspire. I give them quite a lot of credit and they were every bit as cordial and polite and friendly with me as I was with them.

c montgomery

Candie wrote: »

I'm imagine most people who think that Granddad is trying to tell them where his good underpants are hidden through the medium of fridge magnets are either frauds, delusional, gullible, credulous, desperate, bereaved, I'm-spiritual-and-special types, fragile, or just plain old stupid.


Also, less of the tranny stuff would be nice, as would amateur diagnoses.

What's wrong with tranny?

nozzferrahhtoo

railer201 wrote: »

So what do you make of that anecdote then ?

You know exactly what I think about it given you know you posted it before and I replied to it before. But I notice when quoting that post you A) did not quote all of it and did not include the usual link to the post so that people could see ALL of it.

But I am happy to repeat the parts you edited out! And even add to it a little.

We know stories like this happen all the time.

What I think people miss when parsing stories of this form is just how many people are on this planet. And just how many of them hear voices all the time.

So stories like the one you link to are almost a statistical necessity. They HAVE to happen. Why? Because SO MANY people are hearing voices in this world that eventually SOME of them have to coincide with a real world event.

A similar example is the people who claim things like "I was thinking about my friend, who I have not spoken to in 10 years..... and in THAT VERY MOMENT the friend phoned me!!!!!" as if some kind of psychic connection has occured.

And initially there is a kind of "wow" factor to a story like that until rationality takes over and you realize A) People think about friends and relatives all the time, sometime numerous times per day. People ring old friends all the time. c) Statistically there are going to be numerous cases where these two things coincide.

So in the case of your anecdote, people will think about, maybe even hallucinate, friends all the time. Friends die all the time. So statistically speaking you will HAVE to some days find some anecdotes of people who had such an experience followed by learning the person died.

Anecdotes of this nature require nothing paranormal. They just require basic, every day, normal, mundande, mathematical statistics.

railer201 wrote: »

On what basis are you doubting the mental health of the pilot in question ?

It is nothing about doubting them so much as merely caring for their well being. If you want to explore the possibility of a paranormal event, that is FINE with me. But I think we owe it to people, who have started seeing and hearing things that are seemingly not there, to be prudent and take the medical course FIRST.

Seeing and hearing things that are not there is often symptomatic of what can be very serious and life threatening conditions. By all means explore as many explanations as you want to. But for the sake of the person in question explore the medical ones FIRST before any possible medical condition can progress further.

railer201 wrote: »

He saw the ghost of a deceased colleague, there are countless such testimonies by rational sane people. I think your problem is really that such anecdotes just don't square with atheist thinking.

Not "the problem" at all no. "The Problem" is that people have all kinds of unexplained experiences all the time. Every day 100s of people will have experiences THEY can not explain. And it is often fun, interesting, useful, or all of the above to try and explain them.

What is NOT helpful is to simply transpose some pet narrative about existence onto such experience and act like the fact they can not be explained essentially means they can be explained. "Oh I cant explain that.... therefore god" "I can not explain that.... therefore ghosts" "I can not explain that.... therefore aliens".

The moment you find yourself using a LACK of explanation for something AS evidence for some narrative..... is the moment you have erred into wish thinking, confirmation bias, and narrative.

nozzferrahhtoo

pone2012 wrote: »

Credentials are vital, unless you are going to let your mechanic give you a prostate exam

If the mechanic could demonstrate proficiency then he would be welcome to. Because it is a persons proficiency at a task, not the letters after his name, that he should be judged on.

Similarly when someone is making a truth claim, it is the evidence for that claim, not the letters after their name, that is important.

You obsession with credentials is simply an "appeal to authority" fallacy. And it is compounded, as I have shown, by bias to in that you will deride one set of qualifications as irrelevant yet laud an equally irrelevant set as if they are magically relevant.

Deriding, for example, a medical doctor, and then citing a psychiatrist is simply demonstrably agenda and bias driven on your part.

pone2012 wrote: »

you'd better jump off the narrative that they aren't important..

Nope. Because they aren't. You just need to pretend they are because pointing at the credentials of someone you agree with is the only methodology you have of distracting from the fact they have no arguments, evidence, data or reasoning on offer to support their claims.

Once again, if someone has evidence to support X, then it does not matter if that person is a multi accredited scientist, or a homeless unqualified nobody on the street. The claim is either evidenced or it is not.

pone2012 wrote: »

All ill say is theres plenty said in that video...and the biggest one is that materialistic science is not explaining NDE's anytime soon....Sam Parnia (your friend) is mentioned too...

By all means explain to me what aspect of NDE has not been explained by science. You appear to be making stuff up now. Every aspect of NDE that I have ever had described to me have been things that we very much do have explanations for, and can often reproduce in other settings by other means.

So list for me exactly what aspects of NDE you think lack explanation. I think you will find there are more explanations there than you personally are aware of as a lay man to the subject.

pone2012 wrote: »

Also, while we are on the topic of being open minded.... You wrote that didn't you? So on top of proselytising to people on behalf of your AAI organisation * cough* church * cough*, and wanting to get them to abandon their religion, and messing around with what Christians consider sacred (eucharistic), you expect me to believe you're open minded and objective?? Sorry I dont buy it

I have spent nearly 4 decades of my life entirely unaware that arguing for what you see as reality and truth means you are not open minded. However you have not offered a shred of argument above to suggest it is so, so I am likely to continue another 40 years under the same impression.

Yes, I do have conversations with people about why I think the claims of their religion are unsubstantiated. Yes I have caused people to lose their religion by sitting down with them and educating them on the claims their religion actually makes (which they had been unaware of). Yes I did investigate the religious crackers to test them to see if they scientifically shown any difference to any other crackers.

What aspect of ANY of that you think is not "open minded" is unclear to me and.... I suspect at this point..... to you too to be honest. Rather what I suspect here is that you have no counter arguments to what I have been saying above so you have decided to lash out and get personal instead. A road I will not be walking with you.

Suffice to say however there is nothing close minded about explaining your world view to others, and why you hold it, and what problems you see in theirs. Quite the opposite in fact as I see discourse as being the ultimate expression of, and the most important tool in, the pursuit of truth and open mindedness.

pone2012 wrote: »

I respectfully think we'll leave our discussion there...

Oh joy, another chance to test out "nozzferrahhtoo's first law of internet forum posting".

railer201

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

You know exactly what I think about it given you know you posted it before and I replied to it before. But I notice when quoting that post you A) did not quote all of it and did not include the usual link to the post so that people could see ALL of it.

But I am happy to repeat the parts you edited out! And even add to it a little.

We know stories like this happen all the time.

What I think people miss when parsing stories of this form is just how many people are on this planet. And just how many of them hear voices all the time.

So stories like the one you link to are almost a statistical necessity. They HAVE to happen. Why? Because SO MANY people are hearing voices in this world that eventually SOME of them have to coincide with a real world event.

A similar example is the people who claim things like "I was thinking about my friend, who I have not spoken to in 10 years..... and in THAT VERY MOMENT the friend phoned me!!!!!" as if some kind of psychic connection has occured.

And initially there is a kind of "wow" factor to a story like that until rationality takes over and you realize A) People think about friends and relatives all the time, sometime numerous times per day. People ring old friends all the time. c) Statistically there are going to be numerous cases where these two things coincide.

So in the case of your anecdote, people will think about, maybe even hallucinate, friends all the time. Friends die all the time. So statistically speaking you will HAVE to some days find some anecdotes of people who had such an experience followed by learning the person died.

Anecdotes of this nature require nothing paranormal. They just require basic, every day, normal, mundande, mathematical statistics.



It is nothing about doubting them so much as merely caring for their well being. If you want to explore the possibility of a paranormal event, that is FINE with me. But I think we owe it to people, who have started seeing and hearing things that are seemingly not there, to be prudent and take the medical course FIRST.

Seeing and hearing things that are not there is often symptomatic of what can be very serious and life threatening conditions. By all means explore as many explanations as you want to. But for the sake of the person in question explore the medical ones FIRST before any possible medical condition can progress further.



Not "the problem" at all no. "The Problem" is that people have all kinds of unexplained experiences all the time. Every day 100s of people will have experiences THEY can not explain. And it is often fun, interesting, useful, or all of the above to try and explain them.

What is NOT helpful is to simply transpose some pet narrative about existence onto such experience and act like the fact they can not be explained essentially means they can be explained. "Oh I cant explain that.... therefore god" "I can not explain that.... therefore ghosts" "I can not explain that.... therefore aliens".

The moment you find yourself using a LACK of explanation for something AS evidence for some narrative..... is the moment you have erred into wish thinking, confirmation bias, and narrative.

To sum up then you are saying that the pilot was hallucinating and possibly has a medical condition which needs investigating. That appears to be your explanation in a nutshell.

What is your medical expertise on these matters ? Can you link to any studies which support that people who report seeing ghosts or hearing ghostly noises (seeing and hearing things in your parlance) are suffering from serious and life threatening conditions ?

There is no lack of explanation, the other explanation is just simply that the pilot saw what he saw, the spirit or ghost of a deceased person. Within that parameter there are at least two possibilities, an externalised sighting or a telepathic projection. An open mind considers all possibilities and wouldn't really be stacking one explanation over the other, and in particular suggesting mental illness on the part of those who have had paranormal experiences. I would suggest the bias towards the medical explanation as being a result of your atheistic outlook.

Widdershins

Carry wrote: »

Believing in the paranormal is in my opinion just a kind of relief mechanism of a mind that can't (or don't want to) cope anymore with reality.

You see, I've had a shítty couple of days, because my house is haunted:
First my tumble dryer made crunching noises and then gave up.
Then my strimmer started mid-cutting to emit wisps of smoke, made wheezing noises and died.
Then my car started to make strange grating noises, too, and refused to brake properly and finally refused to start in the first place.
And just now my immersion started to screech ...
All in three days. Noises. Poltergeists. What else could it be?

I just want to curl up and believe in ghosts. Organising repairs or replacements, calling mechanics and stuff like that is just so tiring. One ghost for several mishaps is far easier to handle.

On another note: My very religious neighbour told me that there are demons around which you have to fight every day.
Sure, I said, everyone has their demons to fight.
No, he said, they are real, like real physical, with horns, hoofs, tails and all. (No, he didn't take the píss, he is dead serious).
He is a trained pilot ...

And? Does that make his delusions more surprising?
Or is he still working as a pilot, and putting lives at risk?

I happen to agree in some cases the above is the cause. It's also about pessimism. People who cannot appreciate their good fortune and think themselves unluckier than the average person then start to look for reasons for their so-called run of luck.

storker

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I might point out I had speakers on my last PC that would do the same thing. A neighbour I had in cork did Band Practice in a cellar next door. I could barely hear the music myself........ but when everything was hooked up and he and his band were lashing out the tunes........ my old PC speakers would pick up the noise. Was very weird..... the speakers were plugged in but OFF and I would suddenly start hearing music through them, with singing. Was only one day when I heard the actual band play in the local bar that I recognized the voices and songs and put 2 and 2 together and it was all explained. Up until that moment however I had no explanation for it. Just like you.

I had a weird experience like that...

Years ago one evening when we were home with our first baby asleep upstairs, we heard the baby cooing and burbling over the baby monitor...and a woman's voice talking, but there was nobody else in the house. I rushed upstairs only to find baby R fast asleep in her cot and alone in the room. On returning downstairs we heard it again, and I up I went, expecting to find who knows what, imagination running headlong into Stephen King territory, but again, nothing. R was fast asleep and all was well. We heard it a third time soon after I got back downstairs and we listened carefully to it...and then realised that it wasn't our baby's voice. I asked my wife if anyone else nearby had a new baby, and she said a couple a few doors away did. So I walked across and spoke to the husband who was outside and discovered that they, like us, used one of those baby monitors that you plug directly into the wall socket and yes indeed his wife was with their baby at that moment. It turned out that they had their transmitting unit plugged in, but not the receiver. I could only conclude that the signal, having nowhere else to go, found our receiver instead.

storker

Widdershins wrote: »

And? Does that make his delusions more surprising?
Or is he still working as a pilot, and putting lives at risk?

I happen to agree in some cases the above is the cause. It's also about pessimism. People who cannot appreciate their good fortune and think themselves unluckier than the average person then start to look for reasons for their so-called run of luck.

And also there are probably examples of good fortune that they're overlooking, because at time they're just tuning into the bad stuff. It's all about what you're looking for.

As someone who reads military history, I've come across a number of examples of men having a premonition of their death on the eve of a battle...and dying the next day. The story of the premonition is passed on by comrades who survived. What doesn't tend to be remembered are the occasions when people had such premonitions, but were wrong. Such stores aren't as interesting...

Nettle Soup

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

If the mechanic could demonstrate proficiency then he would be welcome to. Because it is a persons proficiency at a task, not the letters after his name, that he should be judged on.

Similarly when someone is making a truth claim, it is the evidence for that claim, not the letters after their name, that is important.

You obsession with credentials is simply an "appeal to authority" fallacy. And it is compounded, as I have shown, by bias to in that you will deride one set of qualifications as irrelevant yet laud an equally irrelevant set as if they are magically relevant.

Deriding, for example, a medical doctor, and then citing a psychiatrist is simply demonstrably agenda and bias driven on your part.



Nope. Because they aren't. You just need to pretend they are because pointing at the credentials of someone you agree with is the only methodology you have of distracting from the fact they have no arguments, evidence, data or reasoning on offer to support their claims.

Once again, if someone has evidence to support X, then it does not matter if that person is a multi accredited scientist, or a homeless unqualified nobody on the street. The claim is either evidenced or it is not.



By all means explain to me what aspect of NDE has not been explained by science. You appear to be making stuff up now. Every aspect of NDE that I have ever had described to me have been things that we very much do have explanations for, and can often reproduce in other settings by other means.

So list for me exactly what aspects of NDE you think lack explanation. I think you will find there are more explanations there than you personally are aware of as a lay man to the subject.



I have spent nearly 4 decades of my life entirely unaware that arguing for what you see as reality and truth means you are not open minded. However you have not offered a shred of argument above to suggest it is so, so I am likely to continue another 40 years under the same impression.

Yes, I do have conversations with people about why I think the claims of their religion are unsubstantiated. Yes I have caused people to lose their religion by sitting down with them and educating them on the claims their religion actually makes (which they had been unaware of). Yes I did investigate the religious crackers to test them to see if they scientifically shown any difference to any other crackers.

What aspect of ANY of that you think is not "open minded" is unclear to me and.... I suspect at this point..... to you too to be honest. Rather what I suspect here is that you have no counter arguments to what I have been saying above so you have decided to lash out and get personal instead. A road I will not be walking with you.

Suffice to say however there is nothing close minded about explaining your world view to others, and why you hold it, and what problems you see in theirs. Quite the opposite in fact as I see discourse as being the ultimate expression of, and the most important tool in, the pursuit of truth and open mindedness.



Oh joy, another chance to test out "nozzferrahhtoo's first law of internet forum posting".

In my opinion you are the best poster on Boards. I've read your posts for years and learned a lot. Keep up the good work. I have yet to see you bested!

jigglypuffstuff

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

If the mechanic could demonstrate proficiency then he would be welcome to. Because it is a persons proficiency at a task, not the letters after his name, that he should be judged on.

Similarly when someone is making a truth claim, it is the evidence for that claim, not the letters after their name, that is important.

You obsession with credentials is simply an "appeal to authority" fallacy. And it is compounded, as I have shown, by bias to in that you will deride one set of qualifications as irrelevant yet laud an equally irrelevant set as if they are magically relevant.

Deriding, for example, a medical doctor, and then citing a psychiatrist is simply demonstrably agenda and bias driven on your part.



Nope. Because they aren't. You just need to pretend they are because pointing at the credentials of someone you agree with is the only methodology you have of distracting from the fact they have no arguments, evidence, data or reasoning on offer to support their claims.

Once again, if someone has evidence to support X, then it does not matter if that person is a multi accredited scientist, or a homeless unqualified nobody on the street. The claim is either evidenced or it is not.



By all means explain to me what aspect of NDE has not been explained by science. You appear to be making stuff up now. Every aspect of NDE that I have ever had described to me have been things that we very much do have explanations for, and can often reproduce in other settings by other means.

So list for me exactly what aspects of NDE you think lack explanation. I think you will find there are more explanations there than you personally are aware of as a lay man to the subject.



I have spent nearly 4 decades of my life entirely unaware that arguing for what you see as reality and truth means you are not open minded. However you have not offered a shred of argument above to suggest it is so, so I am likely to continue another 40 years under the same impression.

Yes, I do have conversations with people about why I think the claims of their religion are unsubstantiated. Yes I have caused people to lose their religion by sitting down with them and educating them on the claims their religion actually makes (which they had been unaware of). Yes I did investigate the religious crackers to test them to see if they scientifically shown any difference to any other crackers.

What aspect of ANY of that you think is not "open minded" is unclear to me and.... I suspect at this point..... to you too to be honest. Rather what I suspect here is that you have no counter arguments to what I have been saying above so you have decided to lash out and get personal instead. A road I will not be walking with you.

Suffice to say however there is nothing close minded about explaining your world view to others, and why you hold it, and what problems you see in theirs. Quite the opposite in fact as I see discourse as being the ultimate expression of, and the most important tool in, the pursuit of truth and open mindedness.



Oh joy, another chance to test out "nozzferrahhtoo's first law of internet forum posting".

I agree discourse is paramount, but engaging with someone who opposes religious institutions yet engages in the same activities as them is pointless..actually its less than pointless, its time wasting

You want to know why I think you're closed minded...its very simple...the examples you gave all point to you having a set in stone view...If you can tell people what to believe and what not to believe, moreover try to convince them, you're no better than the institutions you claim to detest. It also shows you have no opening to the fact that you yourself haven't a clue

Rips, Witsum and Rosenberg did some interesting work on codes embedded in the Bible. Cambridge statisticians have apparently found some extremely complex skip code that when applied, shows messages reminiscent of Psalms, even some occult groups have dissected classical works of music (such as Bach: Chaconne), assigning letters to notes, and again similar Psalm like messages.

Am I saying these things are right? No, but you are sitting people down telling them to turn their back on something you yourself have most likely no understanding of..based on your own subjective interpretation...So yeah, that's about as closed minded as it gets.

Also a new piece of research for you

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917303070

Here's the interesting thing...intolerance and closed mindedness are related to the level of commitment to how atheist/religious one is....Based on your above examples, your level of commitment to your cause is beyond anything I've ever personally seen.

If you're as open minded as you'd like to believe, perhaps the next four decades of your life would be better spent letting people believe what they want, free of your agenda driven antics designed to influence people to subscribe to your worldview

Also you'll probably take issue with that study, just like you do with Bruce Greyson, the Scientists who tested John Chang, and anyone else who's ideas don't align with yours, regardless of their qualifications to speak on the topic, and your lack of...

As I said earlier....lets leave it there

Birneybau

So this thread became as mental as I imagined.

railer201

Birneybau wrote: »

So this thread became as mental as I imagined.

The magic crackers episode takes the biscuit OK

greeraj

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Who says they did not consider the possibility? That is an assumption I see often..... they do not think it is a ghost..... so automatically that means they must never have considered the possibility.

Interesting the mind set that must be required to jump from "They do not agree with my position" to "They must therefore never have considered my position"

Never seems to occur to them that they in fact DID consider the possibility...... at enormous and great length.............. and came to the conclusion that it was an entirely unsubstantiated possibility, not supported by anything at all, and therefore they do not subscribe to the idea.

There is a CHASM of difference between recognizing there is zero substantiation for X and acknowledging the possibility of X. I think it POSSIBLE there is a god, an after life, aliens with anal obsessions abducting our citizens as some REALLY long term prelude to invasion, and that consciousness can lift off the brain at the moment of death and go wandering around in some ephemeral ghostly form.

But acknowledging that all those things are POSSIBLE does not in any way prevent my from also acknowledging the not just slight, but COMPLETE, lack of any substantiation for the truth of them either.

So in other words because you don't understand how "paranormal" phenomena could be real in the sense of having any greater significance than mere hallucinations, it can't be possible. Or rather what's really at play here is you have taken on the assumptions of those you consider to be the most knowledgeable on the matter, materialist scientists, who have been given the position of officiators of truth in the current society (despite their lack of brain cells when it comes to anything outside their specialised field of reductionistic inquiry into surface-level phenomena).

We're venturing deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of materialism as time goes on. At least in former post-enlightenment centuries, to ask "what's the purpose of all this? why is there something rather than nothing?" etc. were regarded as legitimate and tenable questions. Nowadays, these amount to blasphemy. Any time there is discussion in the public sphere about the nature of reality, it inevitably gets framed as there being 'the "facts" of what "we" know' these being the cumulative results of scientific investigation to the current point which one can either accept or be in denial of. But actually this from of knowledge isn't explanatory at all nor could it ever be at any future point. It is really only very peripheral knowledge that has practical value only, and that is to manipulate (and in effect destroy) the natural world. It's really like the measurements taken of prisoners by prison guards for the sake of facilitating maximum control, only as applicable to nature.

Just as in Europe previously Christianity seemed to everyone to be a perfectly rational and moderate position; whereas now we look back on it as irrational and extreme. The same applies to this current age's thinking which in the future will seem perfectly clear as being only relative to the particular peculiarities of the age rather than being explanatory itself. (Think Catholic churches seem silly now? That's nothing compared to how redundant the large hadron collider will appear to a future humanity whose common sense will have presumably outgrown naive materialist assumptions). Only it's very difficult to be able to see through and critique the operating myths of whatever age you're in.

greeraj

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I myself am open to ANY arguments, evidence, data or reasoning that someone can offer me that lends even a modicum of credence to the narrative they hold to explain such anecdotes. The problem is not my level of requirements however........ it is the lack of anyone offering anything of the sort.

You haven't heard all the arguments yet you assume that there's no validity to them because if there were their substance would have already become common knowledge having been integrated into scientific understanding. What you don't consider is the possibility that the axioms (or fundamental operating principles) of science in it's current state are too limited to accommodate such knowledge. You naively assume that science as it's practiced today flawlessly investigates objective reality as it really is in it's totality, which is actually as philosophically absurd as something a creationist christian might proclaim is scientifically.

There are the five 'external' senses: Sight, sound, touch, smell and taste, but there is also the 'internal' sense of the mind, the thinking sense. The materialist paradigm we've been under for the last several centuries is fundamentally based on entirely abstracting and removing this sense from the equation a priori, deeming no deficiencies will result from doing so and the beneficiary being the removal of bias. When in reality what this does is it removes the human capacity to discern the truth of anything beyond the merely superficial level and limits human knowledge to a totally abstract representation of the sensory-motor realm (any possible "objective" conception of which is in fact merely a projection of the thinking sense and therefore ultimately arbitrary).

The knock on effect of setting up this reductionist materialist metaphysical back-drop to human society (of privileging the most superficial and periphery dimension and reducing everything to it) is that all higher forms of knowledge, all the spiritual and religious, esoteric and exoteric traditions of humanity, which deal with things that are actually relevant to humans' concerns, are all deemed to be priorly false. The human mind and consciousness are presumed to be entirely reducible to their material correlates in the brain and nervous system meaning they are irrevocably lost once these cease to function properly. This is stated to be a fact (like 2 + 2 =4) because that's what most neuroscientists reckon and under the materialist paradigm they are elevated to the status of omniscient metaphysicians.

When people undergo cardiac arrest and upon entering the process of death experience a hyper-reality beyond all imagination before being resuscitated to tell of it, clearly indicating that consciousness is independent and disassociates from the physical body and into another frame of reality upon death, it is explained away as a misfiring of neurons because of the dogmatic belief is that's all consciousness is constituted by. It's no different from Christians rejecting evolution because it doesn't fit into their priorly established rigid world-view.

Ipso

greeraj wrote: »

You haven't heard all the arguments yet you assume that there's no validity to them because if there were their substance would have already become common knowledge having been integrated into scientific understanding. What you don't consider is the possibility that the axioms (or fundamental operating principles) of science in it's current state are too limited to accommodate such knowledge. You naively assume that science as it's practiced today flawlessly investigates objective reality as it really is in it's totality, which is actually as philosophically absurd as something a creationist christian might proclaim is scientifically.

There are the five 'external' senses: Sight, sound, touch, smell and taste, but there is also the 'internal' sense of the mind, the thinking sense. The materialist paradigm we've been under for the last several centuries is fundamentally based on entirely abstracting and removing this sense from the equation a priori, deeming no deficiencies will result from doing so and the beneficiary being the removal of bias. When in reality what this does is it removes the human capacity to discern the truth of anything beyond the merely superficial level and limits human knowledge to a totally abstract representation of the sensory-motor realm (any possible "objective" conception of which is in fact merely a projection of the thinking sense and therefore ultimately arbitrary).

The knock on effect of setting up this reductionist materialist metaphysical back-drop to human society (of privileging the most superficial and periphery dimension and reducing everything to it) is that all higher forms of knowledge, all the spiritual and religious, esoteric and exoteric traditions of humanity, which deal with things that are actually relevant to humans' concerns, are all deemed to be priorly false. The human mind and consciousness are presumed to be entirely reducible to their material correlates in the brain and nervous system meaning they are irrevocably lost once these cease to function properly. This is stated to be a fact (like 2 + 2 =4) because that's what most neuroscientists reckon and under the materialist paradigm they are elevated to the status of omniscient metaphysicians.

When people undergo cardiac arrest and upon entering the process of death experience a hyper-reality beyond all imagination before being resuscitated to tell of it, clearly indicating that consciousness is independent and disassociates from the physical body and into another frame of reality upon death, it is explained away as a misfiring of neurons because of the dogmatic belief is that's all consciousness is constituted by. It's no different from Christians rejecting evolution because it doesn't fit into their priorly established rigid world-view.

With the what now?

Ipso

Ipso wrote: »

With the what now?

She/he thinks that thinking about things deprives us of the benefit of appreciating an instinctual knowledge of somethings veracity, an instinct borne of some as-yet unarticulated sense. We're closing our minds to greater things by trying to apply logic or understanding to things that can't be consciously known or understood.

I think.

Nine shades of nonsense.

Ipso

But it sounds good on facebook, I suppose.

Here is a Deepak Chopra quote generator, it is useful in aligning chakras to the woo plain.
http://wisdomofchopra.com/

jigglypuffstuff

greeraj wrote: »

You haven't heard all the arguments yet you assume that there's no validity to them because if there were their substance would have already become common knowledge having been integrated into scientific understanding. What you don't consider is the possibility that the axioms (or fundamental operating principles) of science in it's current state are too limited to accommodate such knowledge. You naively assume that science as it's practiced today flawlessly investigates objective reality as it really is in it's totality, which is actually as philosophically absurd as something a creationist christian might proclaim is scientifically.

There are the five 'external' senses: Sight, sound, touch, smell and taste, but there is also the 'internal' sense of the mind, the thinking sense. The materialist paradigm we've been under for the last several centuries is fundamentally based on entirely abstracting and removing this sense from the equation a priori, deeming no deficiencies will result from doing so and the beneficiary being the removal of bias. When in reality what this does is it removes the human capacity to discern the truth of anything beyond the merely superficial level and limits human knowledge to a totally abstract representation of the sensory-motor realm (any possible "objective" conception of which is in fact merely a projection of the thinking sense and therefore ultimately arbitrary).

The knock on effect of setting up this reductionist materialist metaphysical back-drop to human society (of privileging the most superficial and periphery dimension and reducing everything to it) is that all higher forms of knowledge, all the spiritual and religious, esoteric and exoteric traditions of humanity, which deal with things that are actually relevant to humans' concerns, are all deemed to be priorly false. The human mind and consciousness are presumed to be entirely reducible to their material correlates in the brain and nervous system meaning they are irrevocably lost once these cease to function properly. This is stated to be a fact (like 2 + 2 =4) because that's what most neuroscientists reckon and under the materialist paradigm they are elevated to the status of omniscient metaphysicians.

When people undergo cardiac arrest and upon entering the process of death experience a hyper-reality beyond all imagination before being resuscitated to tell of it, clearly indicating that consciousness is independent and disassociates from the physical body and into another frame of reality upon death, it is explained away as a misfiring of neurons because of the dogmatic belief is that's all consciousness is constituted by. It's no different from Christians rejecting evolution because it doesn't fit into their priorly established rigid world-view.

Oh no.. Don't you know Sam Parnia is the Authority in NDES /OBES according to him... Simply because Sams findings align to his worldview... Despite the fact that Bruce Greyson ( the actual person who's considered the authority on NDES/OBES) holds a viewpoint reflective of what you've said....

Ipso

Ipso wrote: »

But it sounds good on facebook, I suppose.

Here is a Deepak Chopra quote generator, it is useful in aligning chakras to the woo plain.
http://wisdomofchopra.com/

That's brilliant, nothing it spewed out sounded too outlandish not to have been uttered by that con artist. I can't stand the man.

Candie

Candie wrote: »

She/he thinks that thinking about things deprives us of the benefit of appreciating an instinctual knowledge of somethings veracity, an instinct borne of some as-yet unarticulated sense. We're closing our minds to greater things by trying to apply logic or understanding to things that can't be consciously known or understood.

I think.

Nine shades of nonsense.

God, that's like taking the "your mind sometimes picks up cues from around you and sends a flee response before you consciously realise" and twisting it all out of shape

greeraj

Ipso wrote: »

With the what now?

Materialism is a philosophical view-point that proclaims itself to be monistic (i.e. that the universe is composed of a single substance) but is really a covert form of dualism because the mind is conventionally structured based on a subject-object predicate and this is unwittingly interjected into it's conception of the nature of reality leading to a myopic result.

greeraj

Candie wrote: »

She/he thinks that thinking about things deprives us of the benefit of appreciating an instinctual knowledge of somethings veracity, an instinct borne of some as-yet unarticulated sense. We're closing our minds to greater things by trying to apply logic or understanding to things that can't be consciously known or understood.

I think.

Nine shades of nonsense.

I'm not advocating for the supremacy of an archaic conception of reality as you seem to be suggesting, quite the opposite in fact. I'm saying that our current assumptions are relatively archaic n that they will inevitably be replaced by better ones which will far better be able to account for things such as the paranormal.

jigglypuffstuff

Candie wrote: »

She/he thinks that thinking about things deprives us of the benefit of appreciating an instinctual knowledge of somethings veracity, an instinct borne of some as-yet unarticulated sense. We're closing our minds to greater things by trying to apply logic or understanding to things that can't be consciously known or understood.

I think.

Nine shades of nonsense.

Not at all....all esoteric traditions teach the evolution of consciousness happened..and they we have literally become increasingly detached from immaterial world as time progressed

Although it's typical a person in today's world, clinging to the limited, closed minded worldview much like the materialistic reductionist paradigm mentioned above would think so..

greeraj

Ipso wrote: »

But it sounds good on facebook, I suppose.

Here is a Deepak Chopra quote generator, it is useful in aligning chakras to the woo plain.

You could just as easily create a random non-sense generator and pass it off to people for theoretical physics. Not in the sense that said discipline is non-sense, but that it appears that way to lay-people. Likewise, Chopra (not that I'm particularly an advocate for him) speaks based on oriental philosophy, which is based on a very different way of looking at things. You have to already be familiar with it to understand what he's saying just as with physics, does that mean physics is non-sense?

pone2012

pone2012 wrote: »

Not at all....all esoteric traditions teach the evolution of consciousness happened..and they we have literally become increasingly detached from immaterial world as time progressed

Although it's typical a person in today's world, clinging to the limited, closed minded worldview much like the materialistic reductionist paradigm mentioned above would think so..

Or... I simply don't agree. Interesting that you make an assumption that I'm not educated about esoteric traditions though.

greeraj

pone2012 wrote: »

Not at all....all esoteric traditions teach the evolution of consciousness happened..and they we have literally become increasingly detached from immaterial world as time progressed

Obviously the "progressive" world-view of modern society is utterly deluded. It is simply the world-view that follows from an ignorant disposition. However, the idea that there is an ongoing progression or evolution happening isn't what's deluded about it, only that it occurs totally linearly from bad to good. It may alternatively be conceived as occuring in progressive cycles of ascending and descending waves. The ascending being when things are relatively good and pure, associated with patriarchy and religious thinking, the descending being when things become corrupt and fall apart, associated with matriarchy and materialist thinking. We are clearly right at the lowest point of one of the latter cycles, yet conventional society thinks we are at the highest peak because of it's botched view of history.

Birneybau

greeraj wrote: »

I'm not advocating for the supremacy of an archaic conception of reality as you seem to be suggesting, quite the opposite in fact. I'm saying that our current assumptions are relatively archaic n that they will inevitably be replaced by better ones which will far better be able to account for things such as the paranormal.

IT.IS.NOT.REAL.

Your Face

Birneybau wrote: »

IT.IS.NOT.REAL.

Everybody might as well give up now.

This statement was was typed using punctuated capital letters.

Nothing beats that.

jigglypuffstuff

Candie wrote: »

Or... I simply don't agree. Interesting that you make an assumption that I'm not educated about esoteric traditions though.

And I said you aren't educated where exactly?

I made the point that the esoteric teachings all speak of consciousness evolution, and that over time we have become more engrossed in the material world, and less connected to the spiritual world...

I am undoubtedly sure you cannot go back and actively investigate people's consciousness thousands of years. Which then leaves us with the choice to believe or not to.

But labelling something nonsense, or rather nine times nonsense..requires a little more than what you're offering to hold any weight

WoollyRedHat

I saw lots of ghosts when watching 'Panormal Activity' so don't tell me they're not real. I saw them, with my own eyes.

Personally I think the cult of disbelief is actually spread by those who are in fact dead and ghosts themselves, which is the majority of this thread. They don't want their secret to be revealed. That's the truth.

nozzferrahhtoo

Apologies for the lateness of my reply. I have been on a nice multi-country vacation during which I endeavored to tech-detox and not use any computers or mobile phones. I can heartily recommend it.

railer201 wrote: »

To sum up then you are saying that the pilot was hallucinating and possibly has a medical condition which needs investigating.

I have never really understood the practice of summing up peoples posts in a way that is entirely different from what they actually said. I at no point anywhere ever said or suggested that the pilot was hallucinating.

What I did in fact say was that in general when anyone reports seeing or hearing things no one else can see or hear, that it is mere prudence to explore possible medical explanations first. Not least because many illnesses are progressive and are best caught earlier rather than later.

When we have assured ourselves as to the well being of the person in question, then by all means start exploring other avenues of explanation. But until that time, the persons medical well being should take precedence over everything. Especially narrative and agenda and imagination.

Remember as a point of example and interest however that we use g-forces and acceleration and changes in atmospheric pressure and the like to perturb the senses and stimulate hallucination, OBE and the like. Pilots undergo accelerations all the time as a matter of career choice.

railer201 wrote: »

Can you link to any studies which support that people who report seeing ghosts or hearing ghostly noises (seeing and hearing things in your parlance) are suffering from serious and life threatening conditions ?

It is genuinely unclear what it is you are asking for here. Are you looking for, for example, a list of medical conditions that result in hallucinations of a visual or auditory form? You want papers on schizophrenia for example? Or on Parkinson's disease even? Or pages and pages about things like synesthesia?

There are 1000s of medical conditions in the world and many of them cause auditory, visual and even sensory hallucination. So what exactly is it you are asking me for here?

railer201 wrote: »

There is no lack of explanation, the other explanation is just simply that the pilot saw what he saw, the spirit or ghost of a deceased person.

Oh of course, I do not mean to suggest that is not a valid explanation too, or a valid hypothesis. It just happens to be an explanation/hypothesis that is not remotely substantiated by a single shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning.

Please never mistake me, when I call an explanation or hypothesis entirely unsubstantiated, as saying that the hypothesis itself is not valid. There is a world of difference between something being possible, and something being substantiated for example.

I mean it COULD be the pilot say what he say because midget lizard aliens on another planet enjoy beaming thoughts into the brains of humans as a form of entertainment, just to watch what happens and what the humans do.

That too is an explanation and a valid hypothesis. But, like your own, it is wholly fantasy and wholly unsubstantiated. But it is POSSIBLE.

railer201 wrote: »

An open mind considers all possibilities and wouldn't really be stacking one explanation over the other

I agree with the first half of the above, but not the second half. By all means be open to all possibilities. I know I am. But one SHOULD stand substantiated and credible explanations over unsubstantiated fantasy.

railer201 wrote: »

The magic crackers episode takes the biscuit OK

There has indeed been long discussions on the Atheist forum about the differences between crackers, biscuits and cakes. I am certainly open to correction on whether they are more accurately terms as magic crackers, haunted bread, or mystical biscuits.

nozzferrahhtoo

As above I apologize for the delay in my reply. I was on a tech-detox three week holiday.

Thank you for once again validating "nozzferrahhtoo's first law of internet forum posting" however which is a tongue in cheek law I invented for fun once........ but it has proved itself to be remarkably true.

It states that the probability a user is going to reply to you on a thread goes UP in proportion to the number of times they claim to have left the conversation.

pone2012 wrote: »

I agree discourse is paramount, but engaging with someone who opposes religious institutions yet engages in the same activities as them is pointless..actually its less than pointless, its time wasting

Since the above does not describe me, you will have to help me by telling me what it is you (think you) are talking about here. I am unaware, for example, what practices I engage in that "religious institutions" also engage in. It is also unclear why you in one hand declare discourse with me to be "pointless" yet appear to be intent on continuing it all the same. Your actions appear at some odds with your words here to the point where not only do I doubt much of what you say, but you yourself appear to too.

pone2012 wrote: »

If you can tell people what to believe and what not to believe, moreover try to convince them, you're no better than the institutions you claim to detest.

Not so at all. Attempting to convince people of things you hold to be true is not an attribute of any given institution. It is an attribute of being HUMAN. And, last time I checked, the people in religions institutions are every bit as human as I myself am.

Where the difference lies, and it is an important one, is the the institutions and people I (in your words not mine, as you are once again making things up about me) "detest" are the people who declare things as true or likely without a shred of substantiation to back it up. Whereas when I describe something I think is likely or true.......... I happily offer my arguments, evidence, data and reasoning for my positions on request.

pone2012 wrote: »

Rips, Witsum and Rosenberg did some interesting work on codes embedded in the Bible.

The same has been done for other texts. And things that are not texts. When you have a mass of words and a willingness to apply pretty much any algorithm to those words, you will always find one that fits a pattern. With a set of words that complex and large you are going to find patterns there. What would be truly remarkable and shocking and miraculous would be if you had a large text that FAILED to contain a pattern. That is so unlikely that I would consider a tome of text with great reverence if it managed to achieve it.

Jim Carey stared in a movie about 23ists for example. A set of people who believe the number 23 controls the world and everything that happens in it. Guess what? It words. If you go around looking for the number 23 in the world, you will find it. A LOT. You will fail to go through a normal day without finding it.

What the 23ists fail to notice however is it works with pretty much any number, especially "small" ones and (I am told by mathematicians but I am not sure myself) especially prime numbers like 23 is.

If you take a work of text or music and say "I am going to find a pattern here" then you WILL find one. It would be a shock if you did not.

pone2012 wrote: »

Am I saying these things are right? No, but you are sitting people down telling them to turn their back on something you yourself have most likely no understanding of..

You will have to be more specific here as, apart from your apparent need to make this conversation a string of personal insults about me rather than about the subject at hand.......... you have not demonstrated a single thing I have "no understanding" about on the thread so far.

There are many things I have no understanding of. The world of finance is a great example. But of the subjects that have so far come up on THIS thread......... there is not one. So please be more specific about what you (think you) mean here.

pone2012 wrote: »

Also a new piece of research for you
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917303070

Unclear what point you think this link is supporting as there is nothing in this link that I disagree with. The link appears to be debunking an opinion that I have neither expressed nor held.

Religious people and non-religious people are both human and HUMANS are prone to dogma and bias and error. So you appear here to be arguing a point I am actually entirely in agreement with

pone2012 wrote: »

Based on your above examples, your level of commitment to your cause is beyond anything I've ever personally seen.

As is your commitment to derailing this thread into being about me, rather than the topic. Rather than defend a single point you are making on the thread, you instead want to go on an ad hominem spree about me personally, which is interesting and telling in itself.

But I am entirely committed to my "cause" for sure. And my cause is a simple one...... to check any claim made to me or before me for the level of substantiation it has (or has not). I am happy to admit that without any of the embarrassment or shame the tone of the content of your post appears to suggest I should feel.

pone2012 wrote: »

As I said earlier....lets leave it there

Let us see if this time you actually do.

pone2012 wrote: »

Oh no.. Don't you know Sam Parnia is the Authority in NDES /OBES according to him... Simply because Sams findings align to his worldview... Despite the fact that Bruce Greyson ( the actual person who's considered the authority on NDES/OBES) holds a viewpoint reflective of what you've said....

Nice of you to talk about me in the third person while putting words and positions in my mouth that are not mine.

What you are, ONCE AGAIN, missing is that the persons conclusions, narratives, world views, qualitifications, agendas and viewpoints are irrelevant to me.

The only thing relevant to me is what they are saying, and the substantiation they offer for it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Whether you like it or not, Sam Parnia investigated a claim, his methodology and procedures were sound and relatively faultless as these things go........ and he simply found nothing to support his world view.

Bully for him. Bully for you. But thems the facts.

If you think Greyson made a claim AND backed it up solidly with substantiation then by all means link me to the full paper and I will read it over. But simply calling him an authority and running away tells us literally nothing. None. Nadda. Nichts. Bugger all. Zilch.

All I am in a position to say at this time is the level of argument, evidence, data or reasoning I have ever seen that an instance of human consciousness can operate independent of (or following the death of) the brain is EXACTLY none.

IF you are aware of evidence I have missed then offer it by all means.

nozzferrahhtoo

greeraj wrote: »

So in other words because you don't understand how "paranormal" phenomena could be real in the sense of having any greater significance than mere hallucinations, it can't be possible.

If you say so. I certainly didn't. Like many other users you appear intent on mistaking the difference between plausible and possible. Between credible and substantiated. Because likely and fantasy.

The explanations for such things offered on this thread are of course "possible". I have never said or even SUGGESTED otherwise. But those explanations are, whether you personally like it or not, entirely unsubstantiated and not supported by a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning at this time .

greeraj wrote: »

Or rather what's really at play here is you have taken on the assumptions of those you consider to be the most knowledgeable on the matter

Nope, you are mistaking me for "pone" above who is more interested in the authority than the evidence. I consider what people say, and their basis for saying it. I rarely consider WHO is saying it. I never judge who I think is more knowledgeable or less than I am. Rather I merely consider what any given person is saying or claiming in the moment.

greeraj wrote: »

At least in former post-enlightenment centuries, to ask "what's the purpose of all this?

A question which assumes there IS a purpose. Should the first question not be "IS there a purpose of all this?" before moving on to ask what the purpose actually is. Just like, to give a random example, we move to ascertain IF someone was murdered before we ask WHO murdered them.

If you want to discuss the "purpose" of "all this" then I am open to such a conversation as soon as you establish any reason to think there actually IS a purpose to it in the first place.

greeraj wrote: »

why is there something rather than nothing?

There is a very human bias in that question too. The bias of assuming that "nothing" is the default and therefore "something" requires explanation. It is, for example, just as valid to ask "Why would there be nothing rather than something?".

So before you harp on at someone about the biases you erroneously thing they are subject to, perhaps visit your own first?

But I, unlike you it seems, realize that BOTH questions are entirely equally valid. By all means ask one, but only if you are willing to also ask the other.

greeraj wrote: »

You haven't heard all the arguments yet you assume that there's no validity to them

I think you need to re-read what I wrote. It contains no assumptions about arguments I have not yet heard at all. You simply made that up. It was SOLELY a comment on the fact the arguments are not forthcoming when I ask the people in question for them.

greeraj wrote: »

You naively assume that science as it's practiced today flawlessly investigates objective reality

Perhaps someone can link to me expressing such an assumption because not only I am not aware of ever having done so, I am also aware of having written many posts on what I think the flaws in science actually are.

So the reality of the content of my posts seems to be EXACTLY the opposite of what you here pretend them to be. Which is not likely to bode well for the credibility people put into your content.

greeraj wrote: »

There are the five 'external' senses: Sight, sound, touch, smell and taste

You might want to update your facts there somewhat. There are many more senses than 5 that help us sense the external world. Thinking there are 5 is out of date to the tune of decades.

But when you want to talk about the mind (especially as a "sense") as you go on to do here then one should do so while cognizant of its capacity for error, delusion, fantasy and imagination........ and the tools we can and should employ to discern the results of that from actual reality. Such as..... as I keep saying........... checking if the products of the mind scale with the substantiation around it.

greeraj wrote: »

The human mind and consciousness are presumed to be entirely reducible to their material correlates in the brain and nervous system meaning they are irrevocably lost once these cease to function properly.

It is not that such a state of affairs is presumed or assumed. It is that 100% of the current data set suggests that it is so, and nothing suggests otherwise. It probably sits well emotionally with you to imagine we hold such conclusions for reasons of anti religious agenda........ but it is not so. The conclusions as to what human consciousness is the result of is wholly based on the fact that 100% of the current available evidence suggests it to be so. Nothing more.

greeraj wrote: »

When people undergo cardiac arrest and upon entering the process of death experience a hyper-reality beyond all imagination before being resuscitated to tell of it

Which is not a surprise really. There is a lot going on in our brain that the brain merely "filters out". When the brain is perturbed by chemicals, electro-phenomena, or proximity to death a lot of these filters "fail" and so the brain and it's consciousness can be made awash with sensory inputs it simply is not used to having.

So that people in such a situation have "hyper" (buzz word really) experience that they normally otherwise never have is not only unsurprising it is EXPECTED. I would be more surprised if it was NOT so than I am by it being so.

To take a relevant side example, consider synesthesia. People with synesthesia see colors that are not there in response to entirely unconnected stimulus. (A common one being on seeing certainly numbers written on paper or screen). But what is more interesting (and relevant) here is that some of them even report seeing "alien" colors that they have never seen or experiences anywhere else in the "real" world.

And this is likely because the color regions in their brain are being stimulated by channels that do not pass through the filters inputs from the eyes normally would. And so they experience a reality outside the one they normally experience.

Why would it be any different on a hospital bed?

greeraj wrote: »

clearly indicating that consciousness is independent and disassociates from the physical body and into another frame of reality upon death

Nope it does not "clearly indicate" any such thing. This sentence right there is where you have made a leap from the facts to your narrative, with nothing more than a linguistic (the words "clearly indicating") bridge spanning the leap between the two.

Now if you want to offer any substantiation for the claim that one indicates the other, I am all ears. If you merely want to declare it to be "clear" and then leave it hanging however then.... not so much.

railer201

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Apologies for the lateness of my reply. I have been on a nice multi-country vacation during which I endeavored to tech-detox and not use any computers or mobile phones. I can heartily recommend it.



I have never really understood the practice of summing up peoples posts in a way that is entirely different from what they actually said. I at no point anywhere ever said or suggested that the pilot was hallucinating.

You should read back your posts then, because the suggestion is there for all to see.

What I did in fact say was that in general when anyone reports seeing or hearing things no one else can see or hear, that it is mere prudence to explore possible medical explanations first. Not least because many illnesses are progressive and are best caught earlier rather than later.

When we have assured ourselves as to the well being of the person in question, then by all means start exploring other avenues of explanation. But until that time, the persons medical well being should take precedence over everything. Especially narrative and agenda and imagination.

Remember as a point of example and interest however that we use g-forces and acceleration and changes in atmospheric pressure and the like to perturb the senses and stimulate hallucination, OBE and the like. Pilots undergo accelerations all the time as a matter of career choice.

Your concern for the pilots well being is touching, but your immediate response of medical illness comes across as more of a conditioned response on your part to reports of post-mortem apparitions that simply don't fit in with your atheist beliefs. G-forces don't come into it at all, the 'sighting' occurred in the foyer of Glasgow airport.

It is genuinely unclear what it is you are asking for here. Are you looking for, for example, a list of medical conditions that result in hallucinations of a visual or auditory form? You want papers on schizophrenia for example? Or on Parkinson's disease even? Or pages and pages about things like synesthesia?

There are 1000s of medical conditions in the world and many of them cause auditory, visual and even sensory hallucination. So what exactly is it you are asking me for here?

I thought it was very clear what I asked you ? The request was for some supporting data to back up, that in the case of the pilot in question or anyone else who reports seeing a 'ghost' that they are suffering from life-threatening conditions. If you're going to make such statements then back them up with something.

Oh of course, I do not mean to suggest that is not a valid explanation too, or a valid hypothesis. It just happens to be an explanation/hypothesis that is not remotely substantiated by a single shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning.

Please never mistake me, when I call an explanation or hypothesis entirely unsubstantiated, as saying that the hypothesis itself is not valid. There is a world of difference between something being possible, and something being substantiated for example.

I mean it COULD be the pilot say what he say because midget lizard aliens on another planet enjoy beaming thoughts into the brains of humans as a form of entertainment, just to watch what happens and what the humans do.

That too is an explanation and a valid hypothesis. But, like your own, it is wholly fantasy and wholly unsubstantiated. But it is POSSIBLE.

Your lizard quip is probably good for a few laughs or thanks, but doesn't do anything for those of us who take this subject seriously. How in all honesty is a person meant to supply proof of a 'vision' for example ?

I agree with the first half of the above, but not the second half. By all means be open to all possibilities. I know I am. But one SHOULD stand substantiated and credible explanations over unsubstantiated fantasy.

There has indeed been long discussions on the Atheist forum about the differences between crackers, biscuits and cakes. I am certainly open to correction on whether they are more accurately terms as magic crackers, haunted bread, or mystical biscuits.

You're free to believe or disbelieve in whatever you want, personally my own experiences tally with that of the pilot and numerous other such post-mortem incidents that have been recorded by psychic researchers with credible credentials to their name.

nozzferrahhtoo

railer201 wrote: »

You should read back your posts then, because the suggestion is there for all to see.

Perhaps YOU should check back and quote me because I do not need to check back for something I know personally is not there. You are the one who should be looking to find it, not me.

AGAIN my position is not that the pilot was hallucinating. My point is that in cases such as this this is the first thing to be checked. Nothing more.

Explore any explanation you like, but FIRST establish the medical well being of the individual.

railer201 wrote: »

your immediate response of medical illness comes across as more of a conditioned response

It is a conditioned response yes. Just not the one you pretend it to be. My conditioned response to things that COULD be indicative of illness......... is to discount illness before I consider anything else. That is pure medical prudence and nothing more. That you need to pretend otherwise is more telling than you realize.

railer201 wrote: »

G-forces don't come into it at all, the 'sighting' occurred in the foyer of Glasgow airport.

Do keep up. I was making a GENERAL point about pilots in GENERAL, not about your specific anecdote. I have already dealt with your specific anecdote at length, which you mostly ignored and dodged while doing what you pretended was a "summing up" of my post.

"Summing up" in this case meaning selectively ignoring the bits you could not respond to. But I recommend anyone reading to go back to post #171 and read all the bits you did NOT put in bold (in other words, wantonly ignored).

railer201 wrote: »

anyone else who reports seeing a 'ghost' that they are suffering from life-threatening conditions. If you're going to make such statements then back them up with something.

But that is not the statement I made. Why would I back up a statement I never made? That would be a very odd thing to do

I am happy to back up my positions and statements that I make myself. I am not so inclined to back up the ones you have made on my behalf.

railer201 wrote: »

Your lizard quip is probably good for a few laughs or thanks, but doesn't do anything for those of us who take this subject seriously.

If you see past the "quip" to the point you might find it more useful. The point being that the ability to make up a scenario, and declare it "possible" does nothing useful at all.

My lizard story might seem like a "quip" and a joke to you........ but so too does your explanations to me. The only difference is that mine was INTENDED to be unsubstantiated nonsense. Yours just IS unsubstantiated nonsense without your intention.

But there is no reason I should be any more open (or close) minded to your idea than you should be to mine. They both have equal substantiation (none) and they are both equally possible. Mine was intended to be comical, but that does not change the fact it IS possible. It IS possible that some weird lizard alien race beamed the hallucination into his head for kicks.

railer201 wrote: »

How in all honesty is a person meant to supply proof of a 'vision' for example ?

Did someone ask you to? I never once expressed any doubt that he had the vision he claims to have had. I suspect he probably did! It is the narrative that he/you apply after the fact that is the focus of my doubts. But I am happy to take it for granted, on good faith, that he saw what you claim he saw.

railer201 wrote: »

You're free to believe or disbelieve in whatever you want

No. I am not. Speak for yourself. Some people are, but I am not one of them.

I genuinely wonder what it must feel like to be able to believe what you want to believe. I myself would like to believe Lisa Hannigan is in love with me for example.

But alas I can not believe what I "want" to believe. I am unable to believe the unsubstantiated. I am unable to NOT believe the substantiated. It does not matter how much I like the truth or hate the truth..... I have no personal control over belief in it.

You might, I am not going to doubt you. But that you can, certainly does not mean I can.

If you want to talk about credentials I am afraid I have no interest in it. If you want to tell me what these credentialed people said, and what evidence they can offer to back it up......... then I am all ears!!! I am agog.