Has any supernatural event been 'proven'?

[Ivan Seeking]

Then I remembered "thing", a white cat that I had taken in that died a few months earlier.

Throwing yourself in the fire?

Was Thing named after the Adams Family Thing?

Zooby explained that this was caused by a frontal lobe seizure. I guess frontal lobe seizures cause you to battle non existent cats. Ivan, I guess you and Tsu both had identical seizures.

If it weren't for Tsu's experience I probably would have talked myself out of this as a genuine experience. I remember that the next morning was so very strange. My logical mind wanted to believe that I had imagined the whole thing, but I knew better. I think Zooby's favorite explanation is valid in some cases, but please, we're not all having seizures. Its not like you can take one or a few isolated occurences and ignore the lack of any other symptoms.

 

[Tsu]

Oh, but it's okay if he calls me a liar...



Hurkyl, you're in biiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggg trouble.

Well...no. You just take it a lot better than I do. Besides, I'm not a mentor. I don't have to be 'reasonable'.

Evo - yeah, you're right about that. I'd forgotten. Didn't I read somewhere that he keeps getting his 'approve' and 'tongue2' smilies mixed up??

Still - Put up yer dukes, Hurk. Them's fightin' words... C'mon you little squirt. I'm almost 5'2". I'll take you DOWN! After all, I have taken out the coasts of 5 countries today. Man. Do I feel bad about that!1 Honest to God, man. Not my fault!11 I'm not responsible for where and when I form... I'M SORRY!1111111111

*Sigh* It's been a bad month...

 

[Evo]

Wasn't hypnagogues' 2004 prediction that zooby would diagnose all PF member's with frontal lobe seizures? or was it temporal lobe seizures. we were all doomed to have one or the other.

We need to do 2005 predictions.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You have to remember Hurkyl can't tell jokes.

I think he was trying to be funny in response to juju's post

So he called you a liar because it would not negate your experience. Hurkyl, give up.

What?! Tsunami has already left with all of her instruments of torture.

I don't get it but we'll see what Hurkyl has to say.

 

[Tsu]

What?! Tsunami has already left with all of her instruments of torture.

I don't get it but we'll see what Hurkyl has to say.

What chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?? I'm still here... I still have all of my instruments of torture (including a delightful assortment of ENEMA tips!1 )... Don't worry... The Hurky Man is MINE! Unless, of course, he has a real good explanation. Then we'll invite him to the barbeque.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I have a BBQ cookbook that would come in handy. It's called How To Serve Hurkyl.

 

[Tsu]

You're confusing your life with old Twilight Zone episodes again, dear.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oh yes, that was it...

 

[rayjohn01]

To Juju
There is little doubt that some people experience things which others do not --
for instance I recall reading about a class Aone Topologist -- However he had been blind from birth.
But to be relevant his work Has to be communicated , if you cannot communicate the experience it does not imply that the rest of humanity is still in the caves , it just becomes irrelevant to them.
When someone says that they experience something but then cannot really communicate it or replicate it -- my guard goes up immediately because despite what that person may say -- there is no way of knowing whether it is true or not -- did or did not happen etc etc. Does not imply that they lie -- but they may well be delusional -- who knows ?
Am I to believe in UFO's just because a bunch of people say that they experienced something or got kidnapped , when in every single case it is a 'one off' non-repeatable experience. I do not think so.
Ray.

 

[Hurkyl]

You have to remember Hurkyl can't tell jokes.

I was even given a setup line! Am I really that bad?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No, I jumped to conclusions; though the dry humor was not obvious to me. If it was anything but THIS story I probably wouldn't have missed it.

 

[godzilla7]

Yeah but as every good paraphsycologist knows, our senses are easilly fooled and two people experiencing something is not definitive proof; anyone ever heard of mass hysteria? if your minds are allready primed by some experience then these things can translate themselves into real world observations that may very well be eronius: thus my original example of the leaf, any good scientist knows that just because two people saw something doesn't mean the experiment has prooved there theory, if there was a consistent haunting this would be investigated using sophisticated measuring devices, to determine the origin of any sensations including infrared cameras pressure sensors and auidio recording devices, so far parapshycologists have yet to pin down any definitive proof, but there are some very interesting anomolies; unfortunately scientists disdain of paranormal research is the only thing holding back the paraphsycologists etc who are merely trying to look at something inexplicable scientifically, and believe me I've attended a few lectures given by the psclical research centre in England and they are nothing if not thorough and scientific.There research seems to show there's definitely something odd going on but whether it's all in our minds, or real is still open to debate, however there is enough anecdotal evidence of ghosts to make it eminently worth studying for those who's interest lies there.

Free your minds and the rest will follow.

 

[godzilla7]

Balls

Anyone like to take my balls and run with them?

Would be interested in talking about this as a physics student with a skepticle but open minded view of "unexplained phenomina", I'd be interested to hear some more odd experiences, I've never had any but I've heard dozens of stories.

 

[Hurkyl]

I've worked the kinks out of my hypothesis! It's not necessary but would strengthen it... but do you recall where on the bed you were lying when you had this experience? Was Tsunami in the same place?

If there was the sheet got snagged on something, and you happened to jostle just right, I could easily see how one would get the impression of someone making a depression (haha, you get that one? ) on the bed.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I would assume that Tsu - very much a creature of habbit - was lying in her normal spot as if I was in bed, but she would have to chime in on that one. When she is gone I tend to move towards the middle of the bed. I was on my stomach in the middle of the bed when the depression was felt between my feet. We had a queen sized waterbed back then.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I can only say that if this didn't happen exactly as I perceived it, then it must have been a truly vivid hallucination of some sort. I would be forced to concede this as plausible were it not for Tsu. The only thing that I can even imagine beyond a classically ghostly explanation is that some physical phenomenon was able to induce similar physical sensations, and similar sensations of smell in both of us. The only unique feature of our living conditions that comes to mind was that we lived in a seismicly active area. This all happened on the 5th floor of an apartment in Glendale Ca.

 

[juju]

When someone says that they experience something but then cannot really communicate it or replicate it -- my guard goes up immediately because despite what that person may say -- there is no way of knowing whether it is true or not -- did or did not happen etc etc. Does not imply that they lie -- but they may well be delusional -- who knows ?
Am I to believe in UFO's just because a bunch of people say that they experienced something or got kidnapped , when in every single case it is a 'one off' non-repeatable experience. I do not think so.
Ray.

Belief and doubt are equally irrelevant. Take the maybe path. Don't dismiss others experiences completely. It is true they may be delusional, or they may be perceiving other aspects of a larger reality.

juju

 

[Sabine]

doc brown i think that what they are doing is a big mistake if god existed an wanted to proof hie existence he does need them, and btw lots of people create these stories for a living do not believe evrthg

 

[phoenixthoth]

This is such a vague question. Has any *natural* event been proven? lol

I don't think the supernatural can exist by definiton, assuming that there is nothing beyond "nature." Assuming one defines "nature" as an all ecompassing "thing".

But having said that, there are tons of weird things going on that many would blindly label as supernatural. To me, it's all natural.

 

[TheAntiRelative]

Because random rare events cannot be proven on anything but a very large scale, all we have left are those who have experienced and interpreted something as supernatural.

The rest of us who have not had such an experience fit into two categories: Speculators and Believers. The funny part is that disbelievers somehow think they are different than what they consider believers. Those that are convinced negatively or positively without personal experience have exactly the same religion-like belief.

It could be argued that the frequent repetition of anecdotal evidence can be considered as valid as any other type of experimental evidence since evidence itself is never a 0.000% or 100.000% representations of "truth" but instead relies upon interpretation. Anecdotal evidence just has to be lent far less credibility per iteration, it has to equal fewer percentage points of a given person's truth meter.
We all believe things that have never been directly proven in a lab. Has someone come to you house and set up an experiment to prove that your toilet actually delivers excrement to the local sewage system intead of passing through a wormhole to the sun or do you rely on the small necessarybelief system that we all construct to lead normal lives? You use anecdotal evidence.

Set up an experiment right now to capture on film the impact of a metorite. You can't? Well then metorites are are just not scientifically proven...

From what I understand, ball lightning cannot currently "Truly" be re-created in a lab and therefore is just as anecdotal as ghost stories. You can't repeat the experiment as required by some of the (un)believers in this thread. I would wager that stories of ball lightning are far far less frequent than ghost stories. Ball lightning however is thought of as far closer to truth. Why?

It comes down to belief systems. Ball lighting can fit into current scientific belief systems easier than ghosts can.

(un)Believers of yersteryear would have burned you at the stake for talking about the technology of radio. (un)Believers of today will burn you at the stake verbally for violating their perfect picture of reality.

The problem of (un)belief is two-fold. Arrogance is one part of it. The second part is a human tendency to internalize their knowledge as part of who they are and to tie it to self-worth. Contradiction of their internalized knowledge is a direct attack of that person's validity. It is seen as an attack of their worth and value. It is claiming that they are ignorant of the truth. These people see ignorance as undesirable and translate that undesirability to themselves.

A scientist is willing to embrace his own ignorance with grace and even pride.

 

[phoenixthoth]

supernatural experiences as higher D events

Michio Kaku wrote in "Hyperspace" about how he had an epiphany while observing carp in Golden Gate Park. The carp were essentially trapped in two dimensions while he was in three. He imagined what would happen if he removed a carp and put it back. How would that be understood by the other carp? It would seem to vanish and then suddenly return but what if they wonder where it went? Where did the missing carp go? A higher dimension. And, thus, Kaku uses this as an analogy to us and hyperdimensional beings, where by that I mean beings occupying n dimensional space with n>3 or n>4. We "carp" are unable to see or by any means detect hyperdimensional beings but they are there watching us, perhaps. If they're interested, that is, and able to. (For all we know, we are living on a molecule two alternate Planck lengths in an alternate universe and they can't detect us!)

But the carp can detect traces of hyperspace. Rain, for example, creates waves in the "space" they occupy. Perhaps one day we will have conslusive empirical data of hyperD beings by inference if not direct evidence.

I was thinking about this today while a cat was sitting next to me. It was relatively short compared to me and it might as well have been two dimensional (for the sake of argument). I tried to get its attention. I said, "pss, pss, pss... knick knick knick." Those are utterances not even in my language but I'm trying to be heard by the lowerD being for I cannot speak its language any more than it can speak mine. It heard something and looked around. Around. Not up at me. If it just looked up, it would have had direct evidence of a hyperD being, me.

The 4D equivalent of "up" has been deemed "ana" (or "kata"?). Unfortunately, the method of looking ana is contraversial and definitely not considered scientifically rigorous.

But it makes me wonder how many of my odd (some would say "supernatural") experiences in my life are really some hyperD being saying, "pss, pss, pss, knick, knick, knick."

 

[Louis Cypher]

Two categorys

There is a third category, those who think that all this stuff is fascinating, if very anecdotal and who are slightly skeptical but willing to look closely at good research into the area; I have attended many lectures on the 'unexplained' and have a deep respect for people who try to go about finding proof scientificaly: the anal and often boringly repetitive lengths these people go to to try and gain some accepetance put's me in mind of science itself, and we should heartily encourage these paraphsycologists, because all they're looking for is proof! Many have started as skeptics of the most ardent kind, some have found that it is indeed a load of old nonsense, but some -often the most ardent critics - have found some truly bizarre results that defy logic, like all good scientists, they don't dismiss there results, but neither do they accept them; one of the finest lectures I ever attended was from an ardent skeptic who had changed into being open minded and less dismissive; free your mind surely and the rest will follow: let's not dismiss the scientific but when we have a result above the probability we expect, let's not dismiss it as nonsense because we can't understand it; I am at heart a scientist, as such I want proof but my biggest asset is my ability to say 'sheez that's odd!' I just don't know! Let's start looking at the unexplained scientifically instead of dissmissing it as fringe science, after all that's what string theory is itself! Where's the difference? I am a physisist and as such few things surprise me about the world, but there are explanations for those things that surprise us, be it Quantum mechanics or ghosts? Let's not lose our ability to look at the world in wonder, for if we do we die inside, surely?