Can ghosts be proven to exist or not?

[atyy]

What is your explanation for the strippers thinking they'd been touched, and knowing the number of times he almost touched them? Suppose they heard his jacket rustling. Why did they then feel a physical touch?

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/post_4.html

 

[zoobyshoe]

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/post_4.html

Yes!

He told them he was going to touch them and where, so they were primed for that, (as opposed to having a word whispered in their ear, or some other sensory experience) and so they reacted to some small sound of his clothing rustling when he moved, or air moving, by creating the hallucination of his touch, just the way people create the hallucination of a vibrating cell phone!

 

[Ms Music]

I have a friend that does massage, and energetic healing - I think it is called cranial sacral? I don't know anything about it at all, but one time she needed a body to practice on, so she used me. (its so hard to turn down a free massage!) She apparently found something that wasn't working right, so she started the energetic healing part, and still couldn't get it to "work right", what ever that meant. I decided to tell myself to focus my energies to help her, and literally within 5 seconds of my making the decision in my mind, when suddenly she says "Whoa! I have never felt this before! I couldn't get (this part) to move right, then suddenly all this extra energy came out from nowhere and now it is working right!"

Now I know nothing of what she does. But if people like her can "heal" with their own energies, and I apparently did something to help her, can't that be proven somehow? I watched part of the video posted in #101 (although I don't have speakers to hear what he said), I didn't find anything interesting in that at all (too easy to explain away). But I find zooby's story very interesting, and possibly proof of something that we can't fully understand yet. But can't science determine if something is changing within a body based on this stuff? How does science so readily wave this away as being hocus pocus?

 

[junglebeast]

Now I know nothing of what she does. But if people like her can "heal" with their own energies, and I apparently did something to help her, can't that be proven somehow? I watched part of the video posted in #101 (although I don't have speakers to hear what he said), I didn't find anything interesting in that at all (too easy to explain away). But I find zooby's story very interesting, and possibly proof of something that we can't fully understand yet. But can't science determine if something is changing within a body based on this stuff? How does science so readily wave this away as being hocus pocus?

Concentrating your mental energies to heal yourself is a completely different thing from telepathy. I've heard a lot of convincing evidence suggesting that many biological functions which are not generally thought to be under conscious mental control can, through training, be controlled.

 

[Ms Music]

Why is it different? If someone can make energetic healing changes within me, how is that different from zooby being telepathic? I mean, on the surface I understand the differences, but fundamentally, why is it so different?

 

[junglebeast]

Why is it different? If someone can make energetic healing changes within me, how is that different from zooby being telepathic? I mean, on the surface I understand the differences, but fundamentally, why is it so different?

Because your brain is already physically connected to your body, and your thoughts are obviously able to control many body functions (eg, muscle movement). You may be able to heal yourself mentally, but that doesn't mean somebody else can heal you just by thinking about you...your brain is not connected to someone else's brain...so there's no way to communicate directly.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Why is it different? If someone can make energetic healing changes within me, how is that different from zooby being telepathic? I mean, on the surface I understand the differences, but fundamentally, why is it so different?

I think you have misunderstood my posts on this subject: I did not claim I was telepathic. The claim I made was that the cashier seemed to be telepathic. Also, you need to watch the Derren Brown video with sound and then also read the article linked to by Atyy:

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/post_4.html

The overall thing I am calling attention to is that there seems to be situations where the intention to say or do something can be experienced by someone else as the fact of it being said or done. My proposed mechanism for this is hypersensitivity to a particular stimulus coupled with a primed hallucination when properly triggered.

In the case of your massage I would explain it by saying your friend has done it enough to figure out when someone is somewhat resisting the experience or when they let go and completely put themselves in her hands. There's a number of different, purely physical, reactions she could get this information from, and then proceed to hallucinate the sensation of "energy" flowing in her hands, according to her beliefs about what's going on. To her, it feels completely real, just like the phantom cell phone vibration feels so real that people take their phones out and check them, and are surprised when there is no actual call.

 

[Ms Music]

You may be able to heal yourself mentally,

I can? Well, I guess I will just cancel that doctors appointment then! Who needs medical science when I can heal myself! (sorry for my sarcasm, I say that in fun only)

but that doesn't mean somebody else can heal you just by thinking about you...

But that was my point. Some people "apparently" CAN heal others, and it is something my friend is apparently gaining the ability to do. Okay, so maybe it involves touching the person to sense what is sick in the body. But once again, how is that different from zooby? Couldn't that be considered telecommunication with cells in another persons body?

 

[Ms Music]

There's a number of different, purely physical, reactions she could get this information from, and then proceed to hallucinate the sensation of "energy" flowing in her hands, according to her beliefs about what's going on. To her, it feels completely real, just like the phantom cell phone vibration feels so real that people take their phones out and check them, and are surprised when there is no actual call.

This is the point I was leading to. thank you. But can science monitor if something is truly happening?

I think you have misunderstood my posts on this subject: I did not claim I was telepathic. The claim I made was that the cashier seemed to be telepathic.

Sorry for my twisting it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This is the point I was leading to. thank you. But can science monitor if something is truly happening?

Absolutely. Mental events have physical consequences: the release of hormones, blood vessel dilation or constriction, and others. The thought of danger alone starts the fight or flight response in a person. That's important to understand: the thought alone! Thinking and the consequent emotions it provokes have measurable physical consequences.

Back when Transcendental Meditation was the big fad there were many studies done in which people were hooked up to EEGs, heart and breathing monitors, etc, and it was shown beyond doubt that meditation produced remarkable changes in all these readings: brain waves slowed down, blood pressure dropped (maybe other stuff I don't recall, too).

Extended periods of mental stress have been shown to lead to less effective immune system responses. To the extent a person can be made to relax by meditation or massage it puts the body in a much better position to heal itself naturally.

This is why the thought you are being touched can, under the right circumstances, cause all the neurons involved in feeling a touch to fire, even when they haven't actually been stimulated by touch receptors in the skin. They've proven this with magnetencephalography: some people who are going deaf sometimes hallucinate hearing music. Scans of their brains show that the part of the temporal lobe involved in hearing music is actually firing and active, just as if actual music were being played.

 

[Ms Music]

So someone seeing a ghost is no different than the fact that I have The Cure in my head right now.

 

[junglebeast]

But that was my point. Some people "apparently" CAN heal others, and it is something my friend is apparently gaining the ability to do. Okay, so maybe it involves touching the person to sense what is sick in the body. But once again, how is that different from zooby? Couldn't that be considered telecommunication with cells in another persons body?

But the example you gave was not an example of a person healing another...

here was your example:

She apparently found something that wasn't working right, so she started the energetic healing part, and still couldn't get it to "work right", what ever that meant. I decided to tell myself to focus my energies to help her, and literally within 5 seconds of my making the decision in my mind, when suddenly she says "Whoa! I have never felt this before! I couldn't get (this part) to move right, then suddenly all this extra energy came out from nowhere and now it is working right!"

The only thing this is an example of is her feeling that your muscles became more relaxed while massaging you after you consciously made an effort to relax. How is it that you interpret that to be an example of her using mental powers to heal you of anything? As far as I can tell, you did not even have a problem that needed to be healed.

 

[Ms Music]

My point was actually very similar to zooby's story. I didn't heal myself, I just told myself to think like she does and told my "energy" to help her. She just happened to notice it immediately, just like the cashier noticed zooby making the mental comment on her sweet face. I have no idea what she thought was wrong with my body, or what she or I did. All I know is I made a mental decision, and she noticed the energy flow.

And I didn't say she healed me. I say some claim to be able to.

 

[zoobyshoe]

So someone seeing a ghost is no different than the fact that I have The Cure in my head right now.

What?

 

[DaveC426913]

My point was actually very similar to zooby's story. I didn't heal myself, I just told myself to think like she does and told my "energy" to help her. She just happened to notice it immediately, just like the cashier noticed zooby making the mental comment on her sweet face. I have no idea what she thought was wrong with my body, or what she or I did. All I know is I made a mental decision, and she noticed the energy flow.

And I didn't say she healed me. I say some claim to be able to.

No, she noticed it by touching you. Before: bad, after: good. No mysterious forces there.

The only thing that could be considered a mystery is you healing yourself.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hey Zooby, while I know that you bring a wealth of great information to the discussion, you are getting specific enough wrt TM and physiological effects such that some references would be appropriate.

 

[atyy]

http://books.google.com/books?id=CXYa_Khlk9kC&printsec=frontcover#PPA233,M1

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hey Zooby, while I know that you bring a wealth of great information to the discussion, you are getting specific enough wrt TM and physiological effects such that some references would be appropriate.

Abstract from a 1970 study:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/3926/1751

Oxygen consumption, heart rate, skin resistance, and electroenceph-alograph measurements were recorded before, during, and after subjects practiced a technique called transcendental meditation. There were significant changes between the control period and the meditation period in all measurements. During meditation, oxygen consumption and heart rate decreased, skin resistance increased, and the electroencephalogram showed specific changes in certain frequencies. These results seem to distinguish the state produced by transcendental meditation from commonly encountered states of consciousness and suggest that it may have practical applications.

From American Medical Association:

Overall, of the 103 participants who were enrolled, 84 (82 percent) completed the study. At the end of the trial, patients in the Transcendental Meditation group had significantly lower blood pressure; improved fasting blood glucose and insulin levels, which signify reduced insulin resistance; and more stable functioning of the autonomic nervous system. “These physiological effects were accomplished without changes in body weight, medication or psychosocial variables and despite a marginally statistically significant increase in physical activity in the health education group,” the authors write.

“These current results also expand our causal understanding of the role of stress in the rising epidemic of the metabolic syndrome,” they continue. “Although current low levels of physical activity, unhealthy eating habits and resultant obesity are triggers for this epidemic, the demands of modern society may also be responsible for higher levels of chronic stress.” Such stress causes the release of cortisol and other hormones and neurotransmitters, which over time damage the cardiovascular system.

http://www.tm.org/american-medical-association

 

[sepfield]

Let's stay on topic. No more personal comments please.

well said sir ! - just popped back into say that to be fair ,i was just fishing to see the GENERAL tone of the board and Dave unfortunately fell right into my trap - so i offer Dave a full apology for bating him - so sorry mate nothing personal

the whole point of the exercise is to show that when we start talking about the nebulous concept of "ghosts" it appears there are just 2 camps the skeptics - who will brook no argument and the believers who also will brook no argument

unfortunately - the skeptical tend to use the same dismissive set of tactics each time - hence my original comment of " been here before " - and i just wondered if this board was any different ?? - obviously not

anyways - i will thank you all for your time - and forbearance - oh and for the record Dave

yea i do believe in them - as like a lot of other things not accepted by science ( par ce ) - to do otherwise is the height of folly - or the height of arrogance - not too sure which

have good and safe lives all - and whatever you believe - be comfortable with it - because at the end of the day YOU and YOU alone have to live with it - the rest out there ?- do they REALLY care a jot WHAT you think or believe in ??

one to ponder

thanks again for your time all

my best regards to you all

sepfield has NOW left the building

byeeeeeeeee

 

[zoobyshoe]

This should probably also have a reference, and needs a couple corrections:

This is why the thought you are being touched can, under the right circumstances, cause all the neurons involved in feeling a touch to fire, even when they haven't actually been stimulated by touch receptors in the skin. They've proven this with magnetencephalography: some people who are going deaf sometimes hallucinate hearing music. Scans of their brains show that the part of the temporal lobe involved in hearing music is actually firing and active, just as if actual music were being played.

(I said "magnetoencephalography" when it was actually a PET scan. Also, the activity is not described as being in the temporal lobe but in the "music processing regions of the brain", which are not limited to the primary auditory cortex of the temporal lobe.)

Griffiths has taken this research further. He studied six elderly patients who developed musical hallucinations after they began to go deaf. The music they heard ranged from rugby songs to the hits of British singer Shirley Bassey. Griffiths scanned his subjects' brains with a technique known as PET (positron emission tomography). He injected a radioactive marker into their bloodstream, which accumulated in the most active parts of the brains of his subjects. Each time he scanned his subjects' brains, he asked them whether they had experienced a musical hallucination during the scan. If they had, he asked them to rate its intensity on a scale from one to seven.

Griffiths discovered a network of regions in the brain that became more active as the hallucinations got more intense. He was taken aback by their pattern. "You see a very similar pattern in normal people who are listening to music," he says. The main difference is that musical hallucinations don't activate the primary auditory cortex, the first stop for sound in the brain. When people hallucinate, they use only the parts of the brain responsible for turning simple sounds into complex music.

Griffiths has used these results to build a hypothesis: The music-processing regions of the brain are continually looking for patterns in the signals arriving from the ears. As these regions recognize a tune, they amplify certain sounds that fit the music and minimize extraneous sounds. That's how you can hear the melody of a piano in a noisy lounge. When no sound is coming into the ears, Griffiths argues, neurons in the music network sometimes spontaneously fire off random impulses. The brain can seize on these signals and try to impose some structure to them, rummaging through its memories for a match. A few notes may suddenly turn into a familiar melody.

http://carlzimmer.com/articles/2004.php?subaction=showfull&id=1177189852&archive=&start_from=&ucat=7&

 

[DaveC426913]

well said sir ! - just popped back into say that to be fair ,i was just fishing

The word you're looking for is trolling.

 

[Ms Music]

What?

Sorry, that comment was relating to this part of what you said:

This is why the thought you are being touched can, under the right circumstances, cause all the neurons involved in feeling a touch to fire, even when they haven't actually been stimulated by touch receptors in the skin. They've proven this with magnetencephalography: some people who are going deaf sometimes hallucinate hearing music. Scans of their brains show that the part of the temporal lobe involved in hearing music is actually firing and active, just as if actual music were being played.

If I hear music in my head, my brain is active as if I was actually hearing it. So if someone sees a "ghost", their brain is probably firing in the same way as if they had actually seen a person. I believe the brain is capable of making people think they have experienced something, but that is just their neurons firing. And that my friend thinking she is moving things in my body energetically just might be the same thing, also. But her (or someone better) being able to heal energetically should be easier to prove than proving ghosts. Same as if zooby can prove the cashier actually "heard" his thought.

The only thing that could be considered a mystery is you healing yourself.

But I didn't heal myself. If I could heal myself, I would be ecstatic. No more doctors visits! But unfortunately, I am in the doctors office far more than I care to be. No mysteries there, no healing myself.

 

[DaveC426913]

But I didn't heal myself. If I could heal myself, I would be ecstatic.

Look, since there's no physical evidence that she fixed you, why would you assume it is she that did it? Why do you find it easier to believe that someone else can make you feel better from a distance than that you can make yourself feel better from within? You know perfectly well this is possible. It is well-documented that people can psychosomatically make themselves ill as much as they can make themselves better.

Your claim is that you don't know how to heal yourself. But you also don't know that she can heal anyone. All you have is her belief in herself. But believing something does not make it so.

I know you want to believe that your friend can and did heal you with her energies. But ask yourself, given the circumstances under which it happened, do you really, dispassionately, think that is the most logical conclusion?

 

[zoobyshoe]

If I hear music in my head, my brain is active as if I was actually hearing it.

The people in the study, people with musical hallucinations, 'hear' the music as totally real. They do not doubt it's coming from some radio or TV or CD player, and they spend a great deal of time at first hunting around for the source, but they can't find one. It sounds external to their head and is distinctly different from normal imagining of music that anyone might do, which can't be mistaken for being "real". It takes a long time for people with musical hallucinations to logically put the facts together and realize it's an hallucination.

So, I can't really answer your question because I don't know if when you say "hear music in my head" you are saying 'imagined' music sounds as real to you as what comes from an ipod or CD player. There is some confusion in my mind because of the way you put it.

At any rate, what Griffiths discovered was that the brains of people with musical hallucinations were almost as active as those listening to real music, the difference being that the primary auditory cortex, which is where imput from the outside would be received, is not active. Processing areas after that are active, though, and the patterns he saw were "remarkably similar" to the patterns of people listening to actual music.

So if someone sees a "ghost", their brain is probably firing in the same way as if they had actually seen a person.

"In the same way" meaning whatever picture they construct of the "ghost" gets inserted into their perception of the visual field as if it were actually in the visual field, when it isn't.

I believe the brain is capable of making people think they have experienced something, but that is just their neurons firing. And that my friend thinking she is moving things in my body energetically just might be the same thing, also. But her (or someone better) being able to heal energetically should be easier to prove than proving ghosts. Same as if zooby can prove the cashier actually "heard" his thought.

The basic idea is that if you have a pattern of neuronal firing set up in your brain, as with the experience of cell phone vibration coupled to anticipation, that whole sequence can be triggered from within the brain without the cell phone actually vibrating. It's much like Pavlov's dog.

My telepathy notion is that the whole thing can get very much more sophisticated than that.

 

[DaveC426913]

The people in the study, people with musical hallucinations, 'hear' the music as totally real. They do not doubt it's coming from some radio or TV or CD player, and they spend a great deal of time at first hunting around for the source, but they can't find one. It sounds external to their head and is distinctly different from normal imagining of music that anyone might do, which can't be mistaken for being "real". It takes a long time for people with musical hallucinations to logically put the facts together and realize it's an hallucination.

So, I can't really answer your question because I don't know if when you say "hear music in my head" you are saying 'imagined' music sounds as real to you as what comes from an ipod or CD player. There is some confusion in my mind because of the way you put it.

At any rate, what Griffiths discovered was that the brains of people with musical hallucinations were almost as active as those listening to real music, the difference being that the primary auditory complex, which is where imput from the outside would be received, is not active. Processing areas after that are active, though, and the patterns he saw were "remarkably similar" to the patterns of people listening to actual music.


"In the same way" meaning whatever picture they construct of the "ghost" gets inserted into their perception of the visual field as if it were actually in the visual field, when it isn't.

The basic idea is that if you have a pattern of neuronal firing set up in your brain, as with the experience of cell phone vibration coupled to anticipation, that whole sequence can be triggered from within the brain without the cell phone actually vibrating. It's much like Pavlov's dog.

My telepathy notion is that the whole thing can get very much more sophisticated than that.

Oliver Sacks goes into this in great detail in his book http://www.musicophilia.com/" . Fascinating stuff. Then again, everything Sacks studies always is.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Oliver Sacks goes into this in great detail in his book http://www.musicophilia.com/" . Fascinating stuff. Then again, everything Sacks studies always is.

Yeah, that book is where I found out about Griffiths:"In 2000, Timothy Griffiths published a detailed and pioneering report on the neural basis of musical hallucinations; he was able to show, using PET scans, that musical hallucinations were associated with a widespread activation of the same neural networks that are normally activated during the perception of actual music."

Oliver Sacks
Musicophilia
p.8420+ years ago I knew a family; a guy, his wife, and his mother. The mother was in her late 60's. The guy made fun of her behind her back to me one day because she was always chasing around, he said, trying to find out where this music was coming from, music no one else could hear. I thought it was very peculiar because the mother was a no-nonsense, level headed person.

Anyway, some years later I read the two cases of the same thing Sacks put in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Then, as you know, he goes into even greater depth about it in one chapter of Musicophilia. It turns out to be extremely common, not the rare thing he supposed when he wrote about it the first time. People don't tell their doctors a lot of things, Sack's says, because they're afraid they're going to be label as "crazy" or, in a lot of cases, they assume these things just happen, and don't think of them as "symptoms" of anything.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I just remembered that in Seeing Voices Sacks describes a similar hallucinating what you expect, or mental filling in of some sensory piece that is missing from a pre-established habit of concurrance of inputs from two separate stimuli. In this case it can happen to people who become deaf after having had hearing long enough to learn language. He describes David Wright, here, who became deaf at age seven:

Wright speaks of the “phantasmal voices” that he hears when anyone speaks to him provided he can see the movements of their lips and faces, and of how he would “hear” the soughing of the wind whenever he saw trees or branches being stirred by the wind. He gives a fascinating description of this first happening - of its immediate occurance with the onset of deafness:

"[My deafness] was made more difficult to perceive because from the very first my eyes had unconsciously begun to translate motion into sound. My mother spent most of the day beside me and I understood everything she said. Why not? Without knowing it I had been reading her mouth all my life. When she spoke I seemed to hear her voice. It was an illusion that persisted even after I knew it was an illusion. My Father, my cousin, everyone I had known, retained phantasmal voices. That they were imaginary, the projections of habit and memory, did not come home to me until I had left the hospital. One day I was talking with my cousin and he, in a moment of inspiration, covered his mouth with his hand as he spoke. Silence! One and for all I understood that when I could not see I could not hear."

Though Wright knows the sounds he “hears” to be “illusory” - “projections of habit and memory” - they remain intensely vivid for him throughout the decades of his deafness. For Wright, for those deafened after hearing is well established, the world may remain full of sounds even though they are “phantasmal”.

Seeing Voices
Oliver Sacks
Pp 5-6

 

[veattaivatsan]

I was in a store and there was a customer ahead of me who was taking a long time to wait on. Bored, I started examining the face of the cashier, (which is normal for me since I like to draw portraits). I'd seen her there before but never taken a good look. As I stared at her I began to realize that she was a lot more attractive than I'd ever noticed. The more I observed her, the more attractive her face looked. At some point this perception rose to become formulated as a sentence in my mind. I thought to myself: "My God! What a sweet face!"

She turned to me then, and mouthed the words "Thank you!" Then went back to helping the guy in front of me.

Needless to say, I was startled and felt my face turned red.

I have examined many girls for a hour or so,like this! but not even a single girl responded or acknowledged!
not even single said "thank you"!

 

[zoobyshoe]

I have examined many girls for a hour or so,like this! but not even a single girl responded or acknowledged!
not even single said "thank you"!

Heheheh. It seems like it would make things so much easier doesn't it?

 

[veattaivatsan]

But that was my point. Some people "apparently" CAN heal others, and it is something my friend is apparently gaining the ability to do. Okay, so maybe it involves touching the person to sense what is sick in the body.

No.It may not be healing ability of the other,but the rise in faith in you.Your hope raises when someone touches you while in stress or fear!
I have experienced it a lot. When you feel tensed,just hug or keep hand on others shoulder,you may feel the tension reducing suddenly. and also if someone hugs or touches your shoulder or head , while you're nervous or anxious,you will feel comfortable . This is becuase,your mind believes that "ok,I have someone to help me or to stand by me" , and will divert its attention to some other things. thereby reducing your fears ! When you're ill, a experienced doctor will touch and feel your heat rather than keeping thermometer in your mouth. touching can heal,not because of toucher's ability,but because your mind catches hope in that touch. That why touching or patting lightly on baby will make him/her sleep. If you want to reduce your friend's anxiety or illness,just hug or touch them .It will be best than speaking and consoling them for hours.(dont do this in case of swine flu ).

 

[veattaivatsan]

Yes!

He told them he was going to touch them and where, so they were primed for that, (as opposed to having a word whispered in their ear, or some other sensory experience) and so they reacted to some small sound of his clothing rustling when he moved, or air moving, by creating the hallucination of his touch, just the way people create the hallucination of a vibrating cell phone!

Ya,I had this cell-phone-ringing-when-it-doesnt many a times. I don't text a lot using my cell,but sometimes,I feel or hear ringing and after few seconds,the cell will ring! It scares me many times.I don't even expect and sit near cell,but I may be in other room and may suddenly come hearing the tone. but the cell doesn't ring,I turn back and suddenly the cell really rings.
One of my friends also told me about the vibration in his pants! BUt not all experiences this! only one or two of people i have met told of this when asked!

 

[veattaivatsan]

Heheheh. It seems like it would make things so much easier doesn't it?

No.
Here,in India,girls never approach a guy nor say a word.Its an unwritten rule here that guys should go behind girls!
leave it. I think we need to debunk this "approach"!

 

[catawampous]

For a start, one has to disprove that ghosts do exist... not prove that ghosts do not exist as this is impossible. Silly really because disproving the existence of ghosts is also impossible.. for now anyway. Though I am totally looking for theorists to explain the paranormal, instead of the closed minded skeptics ranting on and on without a shred of usable evidence...

 

[zoobyshoe]

For a start, one has to disprove that ghosts do exist... not prove that ghosts do not exist as this is impossible. Silly really because disproving the existence of ghosts is also impossible.. for now anyway. Though I am totally looking for theorists to explain the paranormal, instead of the closed minded skeptics ranting on and on without a shred of usable evidence...

Damn bastard skeptics. If they would only go away anything would be possible!

 

[catawampous]

Damn bastard skeptics. If they would only go away anything would be possible!

anything is possible... just skeptic the skeptics...