Paraphenomenon and Skepticism

[CMoon]

First off, don't discuss religion in this thread. This is about aliens, UFOs, hollow earths, astrology, 9/11 truthers, Nibiru collision, Fema concentration camps, who built the pyramids, we're currently living on mars, etc.

I don't believe in any of this, but don't really actively deny it either (because most of these claims are impossible to disprove.) What I do believe is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that all of these claims lack the sort of substantial and direct evidence that would be required to convince me.

Further complicating this is the problem of eye-witness testimony, also known as hearsay. Hearsay to the millionth power is still hearsay. It does NOT stack.

I really want to welcome anyone in here. This isn't conspiracy bashing, but rather, me trying to figure out why so many people around me WANT to believe in the paranormal. Do most people say 'yes, this is an extraordinary claim, but I have extraordinary evidence', do they not understand what would actually qualify as extraordinary evidence, or do they simply write-off rationale thinking and believe in cool conspiracy stuff coz it's fun?

[drauch]

I think we talked about bigfoot once on this forum. I am a huge supporter for the existence of bigfoot/sasquatch/yeti/skunk-ape/yowie/wendigo/whatever.

[Casper<3]

I saw something. The first thing I did is question my insanity. I told someone about it in my family. In a short time, I heard about other incidents that happened to other people I'm related to that I didn't talk too, scary similar to my experience. It kind of scares me now.

[CMoon]

Drauch> Yes, we had an earlier thread, but I do not think the push was toward the mode of thought. For instance, why do you favor the real existence of sasquatch over forgery? What evidence convinces you that big foot is real?

[drauch]

Damn, I'm about to leave, but I will be back to hopefully answer that!

[NTSC-J]

I think its all pretty much bullshit but its fun to talk about.

Aliens have to be out there somewhere, I just think theyre too far and we`ll never meet any, at least none that walk and talk. I imagine someday they`ll find some microbe on the surface of something (maybe they already have?)

Ghosts I think are the most interesting and I would love to meet one. Still holding out hope that they`re real.

Bigfoot and other cryptids are bunk, especially bigfoot. No large mammal could stay hidden for that long, especially not now in an age where everyone has a video camera on them at all times. For bigfoot to exist, he would have to be fucking other bigfoots (bigfeet?) so where are they? Wouldnt some dumb kid bigfoot wander onto a camp ground at some point? Why would they want to stay hidden in the first place? Maybe if there was a time where bigfoot hunting was the thing and they learned to fear humans, but not one has ever been killed.

drauch, please explain.

[CStarFlare]

I saw something. The first thing I did is question my insanity. I told someone about it in my family. In a short time, I heard about other incidents that happened to other people I'm related to that I didn't talk too, scary similar to my experience. It kind of scares me now.

Willing to say any more about it?

[The Expanding Man]

This prize has remained unclaimed since 1980:

http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/prize/

[Dave_K.]

This prize has remained unclaimed since 1980:

Or maybe its a trap setup by the Australian government to kill psychics that are a threat to their national security! Who knows how many went to claim the prize and died since 1980!

Honestly, $100,000 is nothing in today's economy. And why would a legitimate psychic want to "receive a great deal of recognition and prestige". Doing so means you'd never be able to step foot into a casino ever again.

[Randorama]

Personally I really like the "lost continents" theories. As much as they don't make any sense, I find them fascinating, since they mix the idea of "another civilization" (sci-fi style), with groovy twists on historic facts. We all love Indiana Jones, don't we?

On seeing things: in the last few years a lot of papers on out-of-body experiences and hallucinations have appeared. In particular, it seems quite possible to cause and control out-of-body experiences, so that they can be tested "in the lab". They are definitely real: people really feel like they're seeing themselves from out of the body.

A lot of studies reveal that, in those cases, people tend to "build up" their experience as if they were observing themselves "from outside". In doing so, they tend to make a number of mistakes that they WOULD NOT do, if they were really looking at themselves from outside (e.g. participants often get wrong hair color of themselves, wrong height, shape of body, etc.).

There is also a lot of literature in Vision science on how to induce perception of false images (say, a fish when there isn't any), and there is a lot of literature on "ghost limbs" - I participated in an experiment in which I was induced to think that a fake hand was my real hand. The effect took - one hour - to dissappear, so I literally could not "see" my right hand (try: "rubber hand illusion").

A lot of these things make perfect sense if one uses the classical "mind as computer" metaphor. If your basic input-collection devices (eyes, ears) are hacked, then anything goes in your mind. Believing in ghosts is that step that people do when they assume that their input-collection devices are fine, or they can never be wrong/broken (I call it the "fallacy from self-centeredness").

[drauch]

I'm gonna quote myself from my thread from like last year:

"Anyhow, Sasquatchs' have been found all over the globe in every part of the world. Through years and years and throughout all of these different time periods there are legends and sightings of "ape men" and the like. Why are there sightings all over the world for hundreds of years? Simple: EARTH ELEMENTALS

Sasquatch is all over the world because they are earth elementals. They help keep the homeostasis levels normal and protect the environment. Sure, yeah, the environment is getting screwed anyway, but there is only so much they can do. They generally are well hidden, but yeah, they make some mistakes. THEY ARE REAL.

Am I full of shit? Only you can decide. Odds are good I am, I just want them to be real."

There is only so much they can do. Sometimes they fuck up and people see them. I think I am the only one who has solved this problem. Some people say I am too smart to be on the internet all the time. Ape DNA has been found in places where bigfoots' have been injured. Maybe earth elementals have DNA and they happen to be the great ancestors to apes/humans. I don't make science up, so I can't say why that is true. All I know is that I have FAITH and someday the world will beg for forgiveness for not listening to me.

This is NOT weasels.

[MX7]

Despite the fact I'm a logical kind of person, atheist, with no belief in popular conspiracy theories (though I am interested in them) I find myself inclined to think favourably about the existence of a large biped like Bigfoot existing. Why? Because I very much want them to exist. I'm fascinated by cryptozoology, and the thought of such a large animal pulling the wool over human's eyes for so long is very appealing. I know in my heart of hearts that it is almost impossible to discover such a large primate at this point. When former cryptids/Lazarus taxoms ARE found, they tend to be pretty small, like the Laoatian Rock Rat or the Coelacanth. But it's simply that overwhelming desire to see it happen that makes me temporarily forget common sense.

I think this is the primary thing that makes logical people believe in bizarre things that no sane person would believe in otherwise. A huge proportion of Americans believe that the US and/or Israel bombed the World Trade Centre, for example, which is of course hokum. But I've actually seen an extremely intelligent guest lecturer at my University casually assert that it was an 'inside job', before distributing pamphlets and DVDs on the subject. Now, of course the US capitalised on these attacks in a most unsavoury manner, using it as an excuse to diminish civil liberties and invade a bunch of third world countries. But wouldn't it make it so much easier, one might think, if America just went the whole hog and actually bombed New York? It's all very interesting. And worrying.

[BryanM]

But, CMooner, invisible space wizards are superstitions.

The reason why the brain is susceptible to this kind of attack?

If you believe something, and it only wastes a tiny bit of your time, and nothing happens, eh no big loss.

If you don't believe something, and you get eaten by a grue, then you're dead.

This weakness of the mind can be used to gather great profits, with things like Shake Weights, P90X, Supply Side Economics, and Snuggies.

The only problem I have with invisible space wizards are the tithings; UFO stuff at least gives you something back for your money.

[Randorama]

But, CMooner, invisible space wizards are superstitions.

The reason why the brain is susceptible to this kind of attack?

Because human beings are not hard-wired to need a bullet-proof scientific explanation for what they perceive. Contrary to what Dawkins BELIEVES, evolution did not selected us for "truth" (whatever he BELIEVES that "truth" is).

I wouldn't be surprised if you really feel like I hate you, Brian given my latests answers to your posts, but:

if you read a little bit of basic scientific literature on visual illusions, hallucinations, and other "tricks of the mind", you'll discover that we get easily fooled by this stuff (say, even BA introductory books on Vision Sciences...). For an interesting general reading, Thomas' Metzinger's the Ego tunnel is a good book.

[CMoon]

Rando> I edited down my original post because I didn't want this to become a TLDR thread, but you and I are thinking the same thing. Human sensory/perception clearly isn't perfect and can be fooled, but to this I'd add that there is a natural tendency to favor extraordinary answers. It may simply be that they are more memorable, or more entertaining. I don't know. Given the chance to choose between a rather boring explanation for the Nazca lines (people probably made them as a message or in honor to their gods), many people would rather believe they could only be made by UFOs. This is a clear choice to favor the more extraordinary explanation, since school children can create scale drawings.

In fact, I've found a consistent desire to believe that the Nazca figures are so huge you cannot make them out except by airplane. But take a look. The largest is 600 ft across (and pretty abstract). You can easily see 600 ft in front of you--that's 2 football fields. When confronted by this, people seem cornered and insist the figures must be larger than that. Why? Have they ever seen them themselves?

Likewise with pyramids, there is a believe that the great pyramids were built in 20 years. They then state the impossibility of mankind to build the pyramids in 20 years. This may be true, but why do they insist they were made in 20 years? Wouldn't we be more likely to question the timeline? If I told you I wrote this post in under 1 second, would you insist that I must have had Alien assistance or that the time I gave you was wrong? But the pyramid people never question the 20 year time scale, nor do they know what evidence actually supports their claim.

This essentially returns to the question posed in my original post, but now there is a new dilemma. Not only do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but that evidence itself MUST be scrutinized. If the fossilized Precambrian Bunny of lore were turn up, most would not accept it (I wouldn't!) We would require the discovery of more than one. We would need to see the site of discovery. We would need to know the method in which the fossils were obtained. We would even scrutinize the credentials of those who discovered it. For those who believe in such things, have you been this rigorous in investigating all the alternatives and ensuring that the evidence you have is sound?

[Ganelon]

Honestly, $100,000 is nothing in today's economy. And why would a legitimate psychic want to "receive a great deal of recognition and prestige". Doing so means you'd never be able to step foot into a casino ever again.

The major psychic proof test is James Randi's One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, which has gone unclaimed in some form or another since 1968: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

If a psychic's power is something very minor (lower than the ability to judge what number a person is thinking of), then s/he would be giving up a decent amount of cash by not participating.

As for superstitions, we all want to believe there's something even more amazing that we haven't seen. Maybe that's the type of personality that was required to keep going during our early hunter-gatherer days.

I think that's different from political conspiracies, where we're attracted to the elusive pursuit of secrets. If you think you can understand those secrets, then you belong to a cliche of the enlightened. It doesn't help that there have been a number of proven and admitted conspiracies, where we're only several decades removed from one of the most secretive eras in world politics.

Besides, you sometimes have to use logic to weigh the options. Do you really think the President of the United States was so inept that on the claims of false intelligence obtained from a fairly neutral country, he would suddenly start up a war? Or does it make a lot more sense if some random chatter was the perfect catalyst to please some business interests while possibly stimulating the economy and satisfying a personal goal?

[drauch]

P90x works.

[mesh control]

<------ I am Sasquatch.

[Randorama]

Rando> I edited down my original post because I didn't want this to become a TLDR thread, but you and I are thinking the same thing. Human sensory/perception clearly isn't perfect and can be fooled, but to this I'd add that there is a natural tendency to favor extraordinary answers. It may simply be that they are more memorable, or more entertaining. I don't know. Given the chance to choose between a rather boring explanation for the Nazca lines (people probably made them as a message or in honor to their gods), many people would rather believe they could only be made by UFOs. This is a clear choice to favor the more extraordinary explanation, since school children can create scale drawings.

Oh, I agree. As a kid, before I learnt some science, I was really really fond of extraordinary explanations. For instance, if I could just "choose" right now between the theory of tectonic plates and the Atlantis-Lemuria-Mu stuff, the second one would win hand down.
Mind you, I don't dislike some of the wacky stuff such as string theory, on which one of my supervisors has an interesting opinion (first paragraph, section 1).

However...

In fact, I've found a consistent desire to believe that the Nazca figures are so huge you cannot make them out except by airplane. But take a look. The largest is 600 ft across (and pretty abstract). You can easily see 600 ft in front of you--that's 2 football fields. When confronted by this, people seem cornered and insist the figures must be larger than that. Why? Have they ever seen them themselves?

The Nazca lines can be done by people who have a good method to compute how the figure would look like, if it would be seen from high above. Their authors probably were able to do the maththat allowed them to conclude: "ok, so we dig 300 meters and make a straight line, then turn in this way so we dig a 30 meters-radius arc, then, we dig another 300 meters...". As you say below:

Likewise with pyramids, there is a believe that the great pyramids were built in 20 years. They then state the impossibility of mankind to build the pyramids in 20 years. This may be true, but why do they insist they were made in 20 years? Wouldn't we be more likely to question the timeline? If I told you I wrote this post in under 1 second, would you insist that I must have had Alien assistance or that the time I gave you was wrong? But the pyramid people never question the 20 year time scale, nor do they know what evidence actually supports their claim.

In general, a lot of these claims are based on a lack of understanding that complex tasks need time and careful planning, rather than a one-second miracle. Usually, this lack coincides with a lack of a more thorough training in science. I do believe that we come equipped with reasoning skills of some sort, but our basic equipment can only devise a simple solution to the biggest problems.

If we need to think hard just to imagine how the Nazca people produced those drawings without satellites, we would need to think a lot, and definitely use at least high school knowledge to bring those thoughts to some pertinent conclusions. An easier shortcut can be devised - the aliens came and did it in one sec with a gizmo device!

This essentially returns to the question posed in my original post, but now there is a new dilemma. Not only do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but that evidence itself MUST be scrutinized. If the fossilized Precambrian Bunny of lore were turn up, most would not accept it (I wouldn't!) We would require the discovery of more than one. We would need to see the site of discovery. We would need to know the method in which the fossils were obtained. We would even scrutinize the credentials of those who discovered it. For those who believe in such things, have you been this rigorous in investigating all the alternatives and ensuring that the evidence you have is sound?

Well, it's about how much you want to believe it, no?

...btw, have you been reading David Hume, of late? The thread has a strong Essay of Human Understanding flavour (...trust me, a book of philosophy with a Stout and bitter chocolate on your side is bliss).

[mrsmiley381]

Supernatural stuff is pretty awesome, but really hard to understand. Most of it doesn't make sense in a scientific context until you realize that there are a lot of things that science cannot currently explain based on our current models of the universe. "Faith healings? Bullshit!" is what one might say. Then you factor in some of the stuff Robert Anton Wilson mentions in his books about psychology, auto-suggestion, and the work of Wilhelm Reich, and suddenly things make more sense, though the exact chemical causes of such events are not entirely understood.

Remember, absence of proof is not proof of absence. There are a lot of weird things that happen in this universe. For example, guro and furry artists. Drop some acid and you might find Earth Elemental Bigfoot.

[Randorama]

Then you factor in some of the stuff Robert Anton Wilson mentions in his books about psychology, auto-suggestion, and the work of Wilhelm Reich, and suddenly things make more sense, though the exact chemical causes of such events are not entirely understood.

Oh, Reich's theories were also awesome, it is an absolute shame that they really do not work a lottttFNORD! (Wilson for president!).

Remember, absence of proof is not proof of absence.

This is correct insofar as one uses a non-classical logic. Intuitionistic logic and all sub-structural logics are good examples. I'd argue that a lot of scientists who support this position simply do not have enough training in logic beyond classical logic, and end up making bizarre claims because of this "rough" approach (or, well, just lack of Logic training).

[Vamos]

Remember, absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Im going to have to quote rand and say "you are never called upon to prove a negative" basically its in the hands of those making the claims to prove it not for the rest of us to disprove it as theres no starting point to begin with .All claims of the supernatural are bullshit imo .

[jonny5]

P90x works.

Totally OT, but my neighbour does this. I would hear all this banging and thumping downstairs, so finally I asked him what was all the racket. He explained what it was, and I laughed at him.

'Dude, you're doing aerobics!'

Carry on...

[BryanM]

P90x works.

I was going to do the typical "for about a month", "it doesn't scale without added time - Mas Oyama doing 3000+ pushups a day etc", "all it is, is "'pushups, situps (situps do less than nothing), chinups and eat meat' for $90 fucking dollars" or the haughty "you have to train for a purpose - I can only add ~5lbs to my press a month, but I can press a man heavier than my former size overhead, that would not have been possible playing in the garden" rote responses...

But then I looked at its wiki page. "Kenpo X" made me giggle. And then I saw "muscle confusion". And I now can't stop laughing.

I'm so sorry.

[burgerkingdiamond]

P90x works.

haha I was going to post the same thing. It's true that the majority of people who order it probably use it for a week and give up. I know that all the people I burned it for didn't ever use it.

But I have used it. Pretty fanatically for a month and a half before my natural laziness took over. In that time I got in the best shape I've ever been in. It's not a stupid shakeweight or ab contraption that promises to magically transform you without ever doing any work. It's just a well constructed EXCERCISE/DIET program that requires you to work hard. If you follow it you will get results. It's impossible not to.. I've been meaning to start up another cycle. Someday I will finish the whole 90 days...

Ok, infomercial over. back to Harry and the Hendersons.

[mrsmiley381]

Remember, absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Im going to have to quote rand and say "you are never called upon to prove a negative" basically its in the hands of those making the claims to prove it not for the rest of us to disprove it as theres no starting point to begin with .All claims of the supernatural are bullshit imo .

Rand did so much speed that she became a complete paranoid. The same thing happens to politicians, and I can't say I trust them, either.

The way I approach problems of "supernatural bullshit" is like this: Any experiment you design to test against said bullshit (which it may very well be) only disproves it under certain conditions. Any logical deconstruction of God is sensible in the sense that all "documented" proof of God contradicts a being that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient. But who's to say that the "real" God is not actually Armok, God of Blood?

It's basically a case by case approach. Maybe I look at things this way because I'm a programmer. I don't say, "There are no bugs on this site because all of my tests found no bugs." Because, as all of the e-mails I've gotten in the last week tell me, there are currently a metric ass-ton of bug reports coming in.

There is also that whole phenomenon surrounding Lourdes, France and the idea that at any given point in time, an object has a fixed position in space and technically is not moving. I'm sure that the more I read the more I acquire simplified models of the universe that might be largely wrong, but it certainly is interesting to at least try and make sense of it all.

I'm just going to plug the late Robert Anton Wilson again. Seriously, his books aren't that hard to read, they provide multiple viewpoints for looking at things, and he hung out with Timothy Leary a bunch. He also seems to love Zen riddles that happen to be silly.

Oh, and if any of these supernatural events are proved to have somewhat understandable causes, are they really supernatural any more? What happens if I actually get mauled by Bigfoot on my way home today? Do I still get to be on Ancient Aliens because, clearly, Bigfoot was put here by aliens?

[Vamos]

Really not comparable when your bugs come in they can be easily validated as trustworthy/worthy of investigation or not as everything takes place in a fairly rigid framework unfortunately humans and there "experiences" is a totally different thing which is why the burden of proof is on the claimant .Why build a test for something you have no reason to believe exists in the first place? Well i guess that comes down to whether you consider metaphysics a worthy pursuit.

I dont see how Rands speed consumption (which was over the counter in her time btw and common for students) deducts anything from her statements or philosophy , the virtue of selfishness is a really solid set of papers for example.

Good thread btw

[mouser]

repeats mantra *don't discuss religion in this thread, don't discuss religion in this thread*

ditto, interesting topic...anyway...

Has anyone actually, truthfully, EVER seen a ghost? Nothing hoax-ish like the Ghost Hunters tv show, which would attribute as ghostly "activity" but an actual sighting? They are the most commonly reported supernatural events throughout history. I used to watch stuff like Unsolved Mysteries a lot, do dumb stuff like visit graveyards (no I didn't vandalize anything), keep up with local urban legends, etc., so I had a pretty active imagination. Still, in my entire life, I've never actually seen a ghost.

Another urban legend I've also always been interested in was Bloody Mary. There are so many various rituals throughout the US to get her to appear....would be interested to hear everyone's variation of the ritual if they are familiar with the legend. In my area, it was pretty simple: say her name three times in the mirror, with the lights out in the bathroom.

[Moniker]

Another urban legend I've also always been interested in was Bloody Mary. There are so many various rituals throughout the US to get her to appear....would be interested to hear everyone's variation of the ritual if they are familiar with the legend. In my area, it was pretty simple: say her name three times in the mirror, with the lights out in the bathroom.

Gotta have a friend lock/barricade you inside, too. Obviously.

Did it once when I was ~9. I didn't get clawed across the face, but it could've been the source of my teenage acne.

Edit: @mrsmiley -- You're basically describing the tenets of classical skepticism, the philosophy of St. Augustine until his conversion, or at least, a watered-down, pragmatic version of it. Put concisely, it holds that human perception is fundamentally untrustworthy, and therefore the nature (and even the veracity) of existence is fundamentally unknowable. I held such views for a time, and still do on an intellectual level, but I found it too taxing as a sincere (non) belief system.

[BryanM]

repeats mantra *don't discuss religion in this thread, don't discuss religion in this thread*

I'M GOING THERE.

The calf idols the guys in the bible are always trying to worship? His name is Nanna. He is the god of moon and time. He is, at the same time, young and old. This is why the idols are always a young calf specifically, to represent his aspect of youth.

He's much much older than the cloud god Yahweh, at least 22,000 years now. Perhaps even as far back as when mankind began to migrate out of Africa. So, it is the most natural thing in the world for a human being to want to kneel before a calf.

Oh, and in the Quran the gold calf lets loose a "lowing sound", i.e., it mooed. That would have scared the poop out of me, supernatural hinges opening a mouth to let loose a spectral bray. He would of course also had telekinetic powers, to gore those who displeased him with invisible horns.

Has anyone actually, truthfully, EVER seen a ghost?

Yes!

No.

And I do lots of irresponsible wandering around alone at night in the dark. Maybe thousands of hours by this time.

Spookiest thing to happen to me was when I was playing the SNES version of Dungeon Master, and the touch lamp in my room turned on by itself. Really didn't enjoy those messages the Lord of Chaos left me on his walls.

Also one time I got out of bed, and my foot landed on some giant crawly thing, a relative of the roach. Its hiss sounded a bit like a screaming baby and it crawled away.