Paranormal events and Natural explanations

[QuantumTheology]

I'm tired of hearing people like the skeptic Michael Shermer or James Randi talk about natural explanations for supernatural events. I believe that supernatural events are natural events that we are not advanced enough to explain. These events are true and we can deduce there truthfulness through reason. There's mountains of evidence for things like ufology, psychic ability and ghost. We can examine this evidence and conclude that these things exist beyond a reasonable doubt. There's both circumstantial and direct evidence to support these things. We send people to jail or sentence them to death based on the reason of 12 individuals. So we can know that these things are true beyond any reasonable doubt.

If we were to go back 2,000 years ago and clone a sheep, it would be considered a supernatural event by many of the people from that time period. A natural explanation to a skeptic is an explanation that agree's with their belief system. This is not seeking the truth, this is seeking answers that you have already decided to be the case before you even ask the questions. To most skeptics, U.F.O.'s can't be the answer, psychics can't be the answer, ghosts can't be the answer, so they start out with a priori that these things can't exist so a natural explanation to them is anything that doesn't include these things. Again, this is not seeking the truth.

Why can't life after death be a natural explanation? Why can't psychic abilitity be something that happens naturally? See I believe these things are part of the natural order of things. We just don't fully understand them like the people from 2,000 years ago wouldn't fully understand cloning. There's more evidence for these things then there is for black holes but black holes are easier to accept because they don't threaten the skeptics belief system. We naturally survive death and the only supernatural thing about it is we don't fully understand it yet.

When psychics talk about communicating with the deceased, they often talk about connecting to their energy. This let's us know that we survive death and we are in a natural/material state still.

I just think it's very silly to deny these things because they threaten your belief system. Many skeptics come up with some of the craziest conclusions. Everybody is hallucinating, or nuts or they didn't see what they thought they saw. This only makes sense in the context of a skeptics belief system, this is not exploring for the truth. A natural explanation just means an explanation that agrees with my preconceived notions. U.F.O.'s are a natural explanation, psychic ability is a natural explanation. A natural explanation doesn't mean that these things don't exists even though a skeptic wants you to believe that's the case. So the natural explanation for psychic ability can be that psychic ability occurs naturally and we survive death naturally. This will not work with many skeptics because naturally to them has to be something that doesn't include life after death because life after death clashes with their belief system.

Here's an example of psychic ability. The police had a composite drawing made of the suspect in a murder that the psychic saw. The police also found an eyewitness to the crime and they used his drawing to put on the local news. They put the psychics drawing and all the information she gave them away in a file. Years later a cold case detective pulled out the file and began to re-examine the case. He found out the original witness was drunk and his composite drawing was no good. The police officer contacted the psychic and got more information about the crime and then he asked his Chief could he put the drawing on the local news show. The Chief said yes and they got a few hits and one of the hits matched the information the psychic gave about the killer. When the suspect came in they knew they had the killer because he matched the composite drawing of the psychic. The psychic also said he killed her because she threatened to spill the beans about their secret. When the killer confessed he said he killed her because she threatened to tell his wife about their affair. So a sketch from a psychic years earlier helped the police find the killer. The police officer, the Chief and others involved with the case all vouch for the psychic.

I can tell you stories about psychics all day, but skeptics will have you believe that everybody is lying or mistaken. This grandma spent her whole life planning to fool Police veterans. This is what many skeptics want you to believe. I don't think that makes sense. I think it's easier to accept these things and explore them, rather than deny them at all costs no matter how silly the denial is.

 

[ZapperZ]

And I am tired of hearing people who can't tell the difference between "anecdotal evidence" versus "scientific evidence".

And oh, while we are at it, there is a VERY clear difference between "cloning" and what you claim to be "valid" evidence here. In science, there is progression of understanding of a phenomenon. First, you work very hard to show that such a phenomenon exist. Second, you demonstrate reproducibility of such a phenomenon. Third, you make detail, quantitative study of it. Then, you make manipulation of it based on your understanding. I put it to you that cloning has done ALL that, while ESP and psychic phenomena are STILL stuck at the FIRST one after years and years of so-called observation and studies. This qualifies as one of the symptoms of http://www.bobpark.com/Articles/SevenSigns.htm" as outlined by Bob Park.

3) An effect is always at the v ery limit of detection. All scientific measurements must contend with some level of background noise or statistical fluctuation. Normally, the noise problem can be reduced by shortening distances and increasing the flux. If the signal-to-noise ratio cannot be improved, even in principle, the effect is probably not real and the work is not science.

The most egregious examples are all in parapsychology. Indeed, in studies spanning more than a century, not one of the many thousands of published papers alleging t o have observed telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition, has achieved any level of acceptance among scientists outside the parapsychology community. This is truly remarkable. I can find no other example of a research area in which such a huge body of work h as failed so completely to persuade scientists outside the band of true believers conduct ing the studies. Indeed, in the case of parapsychology it is difficult to see how even the tr ue believers remain convinced.

In the first place, there is nothing resembling progress in parapsychology. Ordinarily, the maturing of an area of research involves three phases: the initial studies a re devoted to showing the effect is real, and to identifying the parameters that control t he strength of the effect. As the effect is made stronger, research moves on to identifying plausible mechanisms. The final phase involves controlled laboratory tests of these mechanisms. Research into parapsychology is still stuck in the first phase, with each new study merely trying, without much success, to establish that there is something to study.

It seems there is little that can be don e to strengthen paranormal effects. There is no indication, for example, that distance is a factor. There are claims that sensory deprivation increases the sensitivity of subjects to paranormal stimulation. In ganzfeld experiments, for example, the eyes of the subject are covered with diffusers. Any effect, however, is still too slight to convince most scientists.

It is YOUR belief system that needs to be reexamined, since you tend to accept as FACT something that has such flimsy evidence.

Zz.

 

[Hurkyl]

QuantumTheology, you might want to read the reading material affixed to the top of this subforum.

 

[QuantumTheology]

Like I said their's mountains of evidence out there to support thing like ufology, psychic ability and ghosts. These things are part of the natural order of things. I know skeptics define a natural explanation as an explanation that doesn't include things like life after death but that's because they are protecting their belief system. We survive death naturally and the only supernatural thing about it is we don't full understand it yet.

Here's part of an article by Pim Van Lommel. This is on near death experiences and it was in The Lancet a peer reviewd journal. I can go on and on with examples and evidence that support these things. The skeptic will deny these things because of their belief system. These things occur naturally. There's nothing supernatural about them.

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm

There is a continuous exchange of objective information by means of electromagnetic fields (real photons) for radio, TV, mobile telephone, or laptop computer. We are unaware of the innumerable amounts of electromagnetic fields that constantly, day and night, exist around us and through us as well as through structures like walls and buildings. We only become aware of these electromagnetic informational fields the moment we use our mobile telephone or by switching on our radio, TV or laptop. What we receive is not inside the instrument, nor in the components, but thanks to the receiver the information from the electromagnetic fields becomes observable to our senses and hence perception occurs in our consciousness. The voice we hear in our telephone is not inside the telephone. The concert we hear in our radio is transmitted to our radio. The images and music we hear and see on TV is transmitted to our TV set. The internet is not located inside our laptop. We can receive at about the same time what is transmitted with the speed of light from a distance of some hundreds or thousands of miles. And if we switch off the TV set, the reception disappears, but the transmission continues. The information transmitted remains present within the electromagnetic fields. The connection has been interrupted, but it has not vanished and can still be received elsewhere by using another TV set. Again, we do not realize us the thousands of telephone calls, the hundreds of radio and TV transmissions, as well as the internet, coded as electromagnetic fields, that exist around us and through us.

Could our brain be compared with the TV set that electromagnetic waves (photons) receives and transforms into image and sound, as well as with the TV camera that image and sound transforms into electromagnetic waves (photons)? This electromagnetic radiation holds the essence of all information, but is only conceivable to our senses by suited instruments like camera and TV set.

The informational fields of our consciousness and of our memories, both evaluating by our experiences and by the informational imput from our sense organs during our lifetime, are present around us as electrical and/or magnetic fields [possible virtual photons? (18)], and these fields only become available to our waking consciousness through our functioning brain and other cells of our body.

So we need a functioning brain to receive our consciousness into our waking consciousness. And as soon as the function of brain has been lost, like in clinical death or in brain death, with iso-electricity on the EEG, memories and consciousness do still exist, but the reception ability is lost. People can experience their consciousness outside their body, with the possibility of perception out and above their body, with identity, and with heightened awareness, attention, well-structured thought processes, memories and emotions. And they also can experience their consciousness in a dimension where past, present and future exist at the same moment, without time and space, and can be experienced as soon as attention has been directed to it (life review and preview), and even sometimes they come in contact with the “fields of consciousness” of deceased relatives. And later they can experience their conscious return into their body.

 

[Evo]

Hi QuantumTheology, this is a Physics Forum, not a Psychics Forum. Many people wander in here by mistake due to a spelling error. Perhaps you were looking for a psychics forum?

 

[QuantumTheology]

So by your definition Evo, you couldn't talk about Dark Matter or String Theory in these forums.

Theres more evidence for U.F.O.'s and psychic ability than there is for things like dark matter and black holes. I contend that life after death and psychic ability are natural events. I think the skeptic calls them supernatural because it helps them to separate these things from the natural order of things and this protects their belief system. The only supernatural thing about psychic ability and life after death is that we don't fully understand them. Just like we don't fully understand black holes or dark matter.

 

[Evo]

So by your definition Evo, you couldn't talk about Dark Matter or String Theory in these forums.

No, just the opposite.

Did you read this forum's guidelines?

Please read the guidelines and adhere to them.

"The purpose of the Skepticism and Debunking Forum is to explore claims of and evidence for unexplained phenomena. Thoughtful speculation and explanations are welcome. Overly speculative or unscientific theories and irrational interpretations of evidence will be deleted without explanation.

Please feel free to share any personal experiences that seem to involve the unexplained. We welcome and value your sincere contributions to the forum. After all, the first step in understanding any phenomenon is observation. You may or may not find that explanations are forthcoming.

This is not a pseudoscience forum. We survey information and consider anecdotal and scientific evidence for unusual and seemingly exotic claims, and informally we seek to make sense of what we find, but the standards for scientific evidence and inquiry still apply. Anecdotal evidence can never be taken as scientific evidence, or as proof of any claim, or as proof that a phenomenon exists.

We will not consider questions that assume an unproven premise. For example, it is true that many people see UFOs - unidentified objects, lights, or fireballs of one sort or another - so we can consider the evidence for any particular alleged UFO event, however it is an unproven claim that UFOs are crafts flown by aliens, so we will not consider questions such as: “What are ET's motives? Or, “what information about ET is the government hiding?” If proven that ET is here, then we can consider what we might know about it, or what ET’s motives might be.

Even if you firmly believe that you have observed something extraordinary, unless you can prove what you say by providing testable evidence, we cannot accept your personal convictions or interpretation of events as scientific evidence for a phenomenon. Again, you are entitled and welcome to share your opinions and observations, but at most they can only stand as anecdotal evidence for what you say. This does not justify assuming the premise of your claim for the sake of further speculation."

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5929

So far you have offered nothing to substantiate anything you have said. This thread is subject to being locked unless you have some proof no one else has come up with yet.

 

[QuantumTheology]

Like I said in my posts, what you are saying excludes the whole of theoretical physics. What about string theory, holographic principle, quantum loop gravity and more. These things are not testible, are they excluded? I guess the point is the things that are excluded are things you don't agree with because they threaten your belief system. Psychic ability and near death experiences can be tested and some of the tests are in peer reviewd journals. So again, you want to debate wether my posts are valid because you can't debate the points within the posts. It's understandable though.

 

[Evo]

Like I said in my posts, what you are saying excludes the whole of theoretical physics. What about string theory, holographic principle, quantum loop gravity and more. These things are not testible, are they excluded? I guess the point is the things that are excluded are things you don't agree with because they threaten your belief system. Psychic ability and near death experiences can be tested and some of the tests are in peer reviewd journals. So again, you want to debate wether my posts are valid because you can't debate the points within the posts. It's understandable though.

They aren't being debated here and can't be compared to supernatural events people claim to observe. Obviously you have nothing to add to the same old discussions we've had here for years. There is no reason to continue this thread as there is nothing new to discuss.

Also, since you don't know my "belief systems" that was really lame and wrong.

Thread closed.