h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>But what we're talking about here are not even unknowns. They are things for which there is no evidence for, but considerable evidence against. And by evidence against, I mean negative results - studies done but nothing found. No test has ever indicated that people *can* speak to the dead. The results aren't negative because these things are "unproveable", they're negative because, in arriving at a conclusion based on evidence alone, there is nothing there to "prove". And to pre-empt the response - no, they are not "disproved" either, but most rational people would make a decision based on strength of evidence.

It's not a case of it MUST not exist because we cannot define it; it's a case of it MOST LIKELY doesn't exist because we've looked and found nothing. <<

Dave, while I agree with what you're saying (Yes, I believe that we are travelling around the sun because all the evidence we DO have points in that direction and arguments on the contrary dont hold much water in my experience), I think one of my points was brushed off as unimportant where I believe it is the crux of the matter.

Perhaps people aren't speaking to the dead, perhaps people THINK they are when in actual fact they are tapping into a small part of something else that, with no other frame of reference, with humankind's preference for creating truths to explain the unknown and with no context, they assume are dead relatives or whatever.

If this were the case then trying to gather evidence on dead people talking through or to mediums, for instance, will obviously come up with nothing to report or nothing conclusive at least... Because my theory is that probably all of these supernatural experiences etc. (Ok, when I say all, I mean all the ones that are genuinely unexplainable, and I am sure they are out there, from experience) are related but are absolutely NOTHING to do with anything that we think it is...

I do honestly believe that we are seeing acorns and calling them apples, not realising that they are actually evidence of a whole tree and therefore a whole environment that we cannot conceive, understand or measure. Yet. Mainly because we're experimenting on the acorns thinking they are apples and therefore proving, quite nicely thank you, that they are NOT!

I dont know how much that analogy makes sense but it's my best throw...

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I don't think a rational unbiased observer would conclude that!

Della: Do you have anything to contribute that is in any way connected to the thread? Or is this just more trolling?

"Dave, while I agree with what you're saying (Yes, I believe that we are travelling around the sun because all the evidence we DO have points in that direction and arguments on the contrary dont hold much water in my experience), I think one of my points was brushed off as unimportant where I believe it is the crux of the matter.

No, you're wrong Robyn, the most glaringly obvious and easy to see piece of evidence suggest that the Sun goes round us and the little bit of rock we live on. Now despite the fact that it appears to be an obvious answer it is also an incorrect conclusion, except for if you consider that all things are relative, but inreference to other bodies in the solar system everyting does go round the Sun.


A veiw of the universe with earth as the centre is as flawed as a view of creation with us at the centre.

Ghosts can allegedly float and pass through solid objects yet they remain attached to a spinning planet that revolves the Sun and many thousands of miles per hour. How?

They are immiterial but can be seen. How?

OK, questions I dont honestly expect anyone here to be able to answer for two reasons there isnt the research to provide you with the answers but then there isnt the research done into how a horse can fly or to what group of animals the griffin belongs.

Sme other questions though, what was you're "eternal soul" doing before your conception?

How long before ghosts leave the earth and stop mithering mediums? If only a fraction of deadies become ghosts that's still a lot of spirits wondering around the earth!

Where do they go and what do they do when they arent haunting?

Why do we only get poltergeists?

Why dont we get ghosts with OCD who tidy up while you're out at work?

Why can ghosts do in a few minutes the kind of destruction it would take a group of people much longer to do.

Why arent we harnessing this spectral energy to supply clean renewable energy?


Now Im aware that it looks like Im ridiculing the subject but lets be
fair that is only because the subject is ridiculous to start off with.

one love

>>Why dont we get ghosts with OCD who tidy up while you're out at work?<

That would be Elves..

Blicky:

I think part of the problem is that the scientific approach to investigating claims of the paranormal (specifically, afterlife manifestation claims) has been misapplied.

I mean that when difficult to explain phenomena are recorded (such as a trashed room) an hypothesis is offered. In this case, a poltergeist is postulated. Then there are explanations offered to flesh (I know, bad turn of phrase)out the hypothesis. The effect is explained by the physical manifestation of a troubled adolescent who died and can't leave that location for some reason, or some other completely unsupported suggestion.

Then the hunt is on for historical records demonstrating that an adolescent (troubled, pretty much by definition) once lived at the physical location. Bingo! A twelve year old once lived next door. Afterlife experiences exist! QED.

It rarely occurs to the believers to apply Occam's approach (Hoof beats? Think horses before you start looking for zebras)or to look into more rational or even plausible hypotheses.

Yes, it would be comforting to think we we were immortal. Even better for some to BELIEVE we're immortal. Some, however, find it more comfortable to accept reason and work with evidence rather than fantasy.

>>Why dont we get ghosts with OCD who tidy up while you're out at work?<

That would be Elves.. >>


ELVIS IS DEAD!!! And if he did come back, it wouldn't be to tidy up your room!

"what was you're "eternal soul" doing before your conception?

" Mine was drinking in a bar over in Spain.

2legs:

I think mine was doing the same thing. That would explain our ruddy complexions and incoherent wailings at birth.

Explains a lot I think....

>>ELVIS IS DEAD!!!<

Hah! Easy for _you_ to say! Just visit Penticton, BC in summer....

To follow that theory, with any luck, that's what my immortal soul will go back to, after this tiresome earthly sojourn.

But we've looked outside our solare system and figured out how solar systems work, and made a pretty good guess that ours works the same way... That's evidence. This exazctly shows my point though. Until we knew better all the evidence we HAD said the sun went around the earth. We didnt undersand the scale of what we were talking about. Now we have BETTER evidence based on a wider view and more experience and better understanding, we can start to more correctly explain what it is we are looking at.

is it so impossible that the exact same thing isn't happening with people thinking they are speaking to the dead, tapping into racial memories, looking into past lives, getting premonitions, seeing ghosts, being played with by poltergeists... ??? We are saying 'the sun goes around us, look' and therefore every single theory based on that assumption will be wrong, right? Doesn't mean there IS no sun!

Robyn, I think your point of view is there is something there that needs explaining, but in trying to assign a cause to the effect we have looked in the wrong direction and missed something fundamental.

My point of view is that there is nothing there that needs explaining, and it makes no sense to try to fabricate a wild and wacky paranormal explanation for an effect that doesn't exist. AFAIK, there has never been a verifiable 'paranormal event' that even needs a paranormal explanation. To use your analogy, there is no sun as you say, so why bother arguing over what orbits what?

We already know the human mind is very prone to confabulation in order to fill gaps in its knowledge - there are some illusions that will make you do this - you'd be amazed. Everyone on the planet goes through a phase of random experience completely disassociated with reality every single night, and no-one thinks this is odd, so why should it be so unbelievable that people perceptions are occasionally wrong?

Woo! Sorry, this has been the best section of debate so far! Thankyou!

I believe there is a 'sun'... Through my own experience of something both unexplainable and very physical (poltergeist? I dont think so... I know I dont know how what happened happened but it did, with no apparent help, and other people heard the disturbance. We would have thought that we'd dreamed it/made it up/imagined it (in the manner of good sceptics)if there wasn't physical evidence left behind.) I am left inferring that there is very probably something who's nature we cannot understand enough even to begin to examine it in a meaningful way.

Without that single personal experience, I agree that overall there would be a lot more evidence pointing to it all being made up one way or another and therefore, like you say, there is no sun to theorise over... And I have no expectation of changing your mind because of my unsubstantiated, undoumented anecdotal evidence...

This is why I cannot sit by and allow people to remain entirely unchallenged when they maintain that anyone who doesn't believe there is nothing else is stupid... It's nothing more than a point of view, and therefore just as valid, in polite debate, as any other.

I guess one could say I'm biased however as I also believe that preaching modern religious views is NOT valid in polite debate... I reject it, personally, as anything other than a personal moral code/lifestyle/safety net. Saying that you know there's life after death because it says so in the bible is as admissable as me saying I believe Hamsters are a type of fish because I read it on Wikipedia IMO. Saying you dont know what a hamster is because you've heard a few theories however... Now we're talking!

Aaah, well, you have evidence of a sort, I don't.

Actually its quite infuriating being a rational sceptic and never having had an inexplicable experience, not even a vaguely any accurate prediction in a horoscope, never been cured by a herb, never seen a ghost. Had a few hallucinations, but that was entirely explicable. Also did a few sceances in my younger days, but my mate later admitted he'd been moving the cup. I feel that I'm missing out. It would be nice at least to have something to explain. Ho hum.

"And I have no expectation of changing your mind because of my unsubstantiated, undoumented anecdotal evidence... "

Damn right

"But we've looked outside our solare system and figured out how solar systems [works]



Yes and no a bloke who its no overstatement to call a genius looked at *our solar system* and worked it out that way. Im not trying to score a cheap point here, but I htink its important to establish here and now, you'll see why later.

The truth was the opposite of the answer we arrived at by the *limited* evidence we had.

So everyday that limited evidence still makes fools of people all over the world.





"and made a pretty good guess that ours works the same way... That's evidence. This exazctly shows my point though. Until we knew better all the evidence we HAD said the sun went around the earth. We didnt undersand the scale of what we were talking about.,

Not a very accurate presentation of the facts. Calling it a guess is like saying that people who use the "green cross code" are guessing when they have checked the road is clear.





"Now we have BETTER evidence based on a wider view and more experience and better understanding, we can start to more correctly explain what it is we are looking at.

True we do, the evidence I have spoken about relating to world population and gravity all the rest suggest that ghosts are an impossibility, this is evidence that has been collected and understood since the emergence of a belief in the the supra-natural but its evidence that isnt even considered by thos who adhere to tarot cards, astrology or any other woo woo stuff that would be undermined by anyone who really thought about it.





"is it so impossible that the exact same thing isn't happening with people thinking they are speaking to the dead,

No as I am doing my best to explain and not doing to well as I easily get sucked into the usual bickereing with...well you know who...the EXACT OPPOSITE is happening. There has *never* been any hard evidence for any of the woo woo stuff like spoon bending or talking to the dead. All that time there has been an accrual of more and more evidence that there cant be any of the woo woo stuff as it is described by the people who insist it is or *could* be true, but its impossible to prove a negative. What science has done is said this is how the stuff we know about works and we just dont see how homeopathy fits in.





"tapping into racial memories,

Race is not a real thing, which is sort of my point, Hitler and his cronies believed in a whole bunch of woo woo stuff and one of the things at the heart of their twisted ideology. The idea that we are separate peoples is no way true, but like ghosts and ghoulies the the idea is kept a live by people who dont know the science ignorantly giving lip service to the the devise and nasty notion.

That is not an attack on you, there are lots of things Im ignorant of, but to persist in and wallow in ignorance about, as on this thread, woo woo stuff shows how much people *want to believe* in spite of the mounting evidence to the contrary.




"looking into past lives, getting premonitions, seeing ghosts, being played with by poltergeists... ??? We are saying 'the sun goes around us, look,.

Nice idea but once again you are spreading the bread onto the butter.

Fine if people want to say its the way things are, but what if there is evidence which squeezes out those claims is it reasonable to cling onto the little bits that are still tenable only because they havent been refuted *yet* while the rest has been shown to have no grounding in reality and purely been based on misunderstandings of what our senses tell us




"We are saying 'the sun goes around us, look, and therefore every single theory based on that assumption will be wrong, right? Doesn't mean there IS no sun!

No people are saying: "my friend saw this"

"I read this in a book"

"I had this funny feeling"

Science is not saying that there arent books, friends or feelings but merelyt hat their interpretations of reality are flawed.



There is a sun, its goes round the galactic centre and we go round it any other interpretion is siply a flwed interpretation based on flimsy evidence. Just the same with woo woo stuff.





one love

I have had an experience. I cant explain it. It wasn't wind or a creaky floorboard or a gas leak or an expanding air bubble in a brick or any of the usual rational explanations... And it only happened once therefore stopping anybody being able to study it. There was no 'cold' no 'voices' no feelings of euphoria or onness, just an inanimate object acting in a way it could not have in the position it was in without some sort of manipulation...

Not hearsay, not induced by any mystic attraction or theory (I wasn't into any occult stuff etc, hadn't read anything that would have started me thinking along those sorts of lines), not asked for and not repeated.

... Which is exactly what you are saying doesn't happen blicky.

And all I am willing to infer from it is that we dont know it all yet and some other force/place/state may exist.

... however as i thought we had cleared up, IF there is anything else, all the tests for a specific have been aiming at the wrong thing.

Now, I have a friend who does believe people can talk to the 'other side' have spirit guides and so on... And we discuss these things on a regular basis... She still has doubts (I'm glad to say) however she also has some very compelling evidence for, but as it's all anecdotal i'll not bother with it here!

blah, anyway, Agreeing to disagree is a virtue I think, and I think we have more or less understood each others' points if not agreed with them, yes?

Night night!!! (I'm off to have sane and ordered dreams lest I become 'Woo woo crazy'..)

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That's reasonable.

I think most of us have probably had an experience that we consider inexplicable.

Rational people put that experience in the category of "thus far unexplained".

Irrational people put it in any one of a thousand loopy categories, from "a sign from heaven" to "an omen" to "a miracle". Then they consider the unexplainable to have been explained. End of problem. End of rational inquiry.

Fair enough Robyn, you are saying that people like me who are rationalists and proper paid scientists not throw out the idea of the supra-natural and general woo woo stuff. You want us to hold the door open despite their being no positive evidence ever having been produced. That is to say people have gabbled on about all manner of things down through recorded history but there has never been any show and prove of the woo woo stuff, but you want it took seriously and investigated on the purely anecdotal evidence for it.


You're asking a lot really.

Mohammed al Fayed springs to mind. People who say they have seen Elvis, *since* his death spring to mind.

dosmnegerti, in the post above is being rather more generous than Im inclined to be and rather more open minded than *you* are in your last post.





"I have had an experience. I cant explain it. It wasn't wind or a creaky floorboard or a gas leak or an expanding air bubble in a brick or any of the usual rational explanations...

And yet if I through out woo woo explanatins you'd say I was being close minded






"And it only happened once therefore stopping anybody being able to study it.

It only happened to you once or you have never heard of it happening to anyone else ever?





"There was no 'cold' no 'voices' no feelings of euphoria or onness, just an inanimate object acting in a way it could not have in the position it was in without some sort of manipulation...

Do you mean *in a way it should not have* as accepting what you say it *did* behave in a remarkable way.



We will have to agree to disagree, as a boy I loved super hero comic books and even believed in the bigG, I love there to be supra-natural powers we can use for the good of people.

What I actually see though is people exploiting that very human need to find magical solutions, what I see from you is out of hand dismissing answers you *know* are REAL alternative answers and holding on to the woo woo option.



Still its your life.

one love