True story of ghost experience

[rockhouse]

Yall act like I'm my stories are slippin. Lol, if you read my posts CAREFULLY, and apply some basic common sense and reading comprehension skills, all the facts are there.
I'm no liar.

 

[waht]

There were countless times that i was alone and my tools would move from me in an instance. It was happening to him too. He's also the one that heard the coughing and footsteps on the stairs. Not just some knockin noises, but actual, steps...you know, like in a pattern coming down the stairs.

What kinds of tools moved away from you and how far? Tools like a hammer which is heavy, or a screwdriver which could have rolled?

 

[DaveC426913]

Yall act like I'm my stories are slippin. Lol, if you read my posts CAREFULLY, and apply some basic common sense and reading comprehension skills, all the facts are there.
I'm no liar.

Nobody's calling you a liar.

As previously stated, your story is told to us as an anecdote, meaning there's nothing we can do except listen to it. It is not told as an account (which would list a comprehensive set of details that we could examine with or without your constantly adding to as we go along or correcting us because related events are spread all over the place).

So, now that you've told your anecdote, what more do you want from us?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Basically what I'm trying to tell yall is that NOTHING holds water as to explaining how this stuff was happening and what the hell it was. I'm a cynical person. Believe me, i tried to debunk this stuff myself...i even WANTED it to be debunked, but it was not possible.

It's perfectly possible, and has already been done in principle. You refuse to accept it. For example: I, waht, Georgina, Dave, and DrZaius (5 people in this thread alone) have all had similar experiences of hearing our name spoken and we're all perfectly willing to seriously consider it was just an hallucination. You, however, speak as if you're hallucination-proof, which is an untenable stance.

When you shift from saying hammer and slide rule alone, to trowel with cousin, then I have to also question the solidity of all your corroborative detail, and especially whether your claims of other people's experience of paranormal activity at the same sites would hold up if I went there and interviewed them. Like the UFO story I quoted in post #6 only some of the viewers vehemently maintained the flares could not have been of earthly origin, yet the pro-alien visitation journal neglected to interview the many observers who thought the lights could easily have been flares tied to balloons.

That same UFO story shows that the confidence and vehemence of any eyewitness in insisting what they saw was real is completely unreliable in determining if a thing is actually real.

Moving tools: I work with tools a lot. I was a machinist for a few years, I fix my own car and I am currently the handyman/caretaker of the building where I live, which includes carpentry and plumbing repairs. Tools disappear on me at least once per job. I unconsciously set them down in random places when I'm mentally preoccupied with something else.

Also, other people do, in fact, sometimes play tricks on you. Back 20 years ago when you could still smoke at work in the machine shop one of the other machinists used to snag my cigarettes from my tool chest when I wasn't looking and amuse himself watching as I hunted for where I'd put them. I had no idea he was doing this, I thought I genuinely misplaced them. Then he quit the shop and on his last day he called me over to his tool chest, opened the bottom and there were all the cigarettes that had gone missing over the months.

Every possible alternate explanation people have offered holds plenty of water. You claim you're cynical and skeptical on the one hand, that you WANT it to be debunked, but then you "laugh at" each and every skeptical alternative offered, which demonstrates you are actually running firmly in the rut of confirmation bias: you completely reject everything but "ghost", over and over.

 

[DaveC426913]

Moving tools: I work with tools a lot. I was a machinist for a few years, I fix my own car and I am currently the handyman/caretaker of the building where I live, which includes carpentry and plumbing repairs. Tools disappear on me at least once per job. I unconsciously set them down in random places when I'm mentally preoccupied with something else.

This happens so often in my circle of art friends that we have an explanation for it: it is the work of the Pencil Faeries. While working at your desk, you put your pencil down to use the eraser and when you reach for the pencil again, it is completely and utterly gone. No amount of searching will turn it up again. Pencil Faeries are nicer than Tool Faeries though; Pencil Faeries return things after 5 minutes.

I once saw, with my own eyes, a Pencil Faery in action. It was spectacular.

I was working in a library behind the counter where there were carpeted floors. I dropped my pencil and, duie to the carpeted floor, it made no noise when it landed. But I was totally 'on' today and flicked my eyes fast enough to see it land. The pencil landed on-end, cartwheeled across the carpet, then jumped a full foot up in the air, clearing the bottom shelf of the counter and the large cardboard box sitting on the shelf, impacted the back wal of the counter, and fell straight down behind the cardboard box. It I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have seen that pencil again.


rochhouse, I'm not suggesting your hammer or tape measure jumped 10 feet. What I'm suggesting is that this happens so often that Tool Faeries are a cultural cliche, in the same manner as sock-eating dryers and breeding coathangers.

 

[rockhouse]

Ok. Take a book that's near you, or a paper weight, or your cup of coffee.
Now set it at the other end of your desk to your right or left, but not near enough to the edge to fall off. Make sure no one is within many yards of you. Now turn your back on said object for, say, 10 seconds. Now if you were to turn back around to grab said object, but it was actually sitting on another desk, 10 feet away...thats the type of crap I am talkin about.
That type of stuff happening over a 3 month period. After awhile, you try and set up the situations, so you can debunk it, but the stuff still happens right under your nose, so to speak. Then after all this people are telling you that the coffee must've fallin off the desk. Or the book was actually moved by yourself unnoticed, or the paper weight was just round enough to roll somewhere...or you were actually hallucinating.
Obviously any sane and reasonable person would exhaust all of those possibilities first, and not find any of them to have happened, then it becomes a story to tell.
Thats like someone telling a story about a ball that disappeared from them as their back was turned, but neglect to inform you they were standing on a hill next to a storm drain when they set the ball down.
Anyhow, it's obvious that this will just go in circles. Yall have provided explanations and i have rejected them based on my own reasoning, logic, experience and understanding...nothing more can be done.

 

[GeorginaS]

I was working in a library behind the counter where there were carpeted floors. I dropped my pencil and, duie to the carpeted floor, it made no noise when it landed. But I was totally 'on' today and flicked my eyes fast enough to see it land. The pencil landed on-end, cartwheeled across the carpet, then jumped a full foot up in the air, clearing the bottom shelf of the counter and the large cardboard box sitting on the shelf, impacted the back wal of the counter, and fell straight down behind the cardboard box. It I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have seen that pencil again.

Did you stand and applaud? I would have.

rochhouse, I'm not suggesting your hammer or tape measure jumped 10 feet. What I'm suggesting is that this happens so often that Tool Faeries are a cultural cliche, in the same manner as sock-eating dryers and breeding coathangers.

I was about to mention disappearing socks, and it's doubly weird when you live alone.

However, seeing rockhouses' subsequent response, it appears that (s)he's accepting no other explanation other than ghosts. (It could be faeries or leprechauns. They are notorious for moving and stealing stuff too.) So, I'd have to say the same (again) as Dave, and ask what it is that rockhouse wants of us, at this point.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I once saw, with my own eyes, a Pencil Faery in action. It was spectacular.

I was working in a library behind the counter where there were carpeted floors. I dropped my pencil and, duie to the carpeted floor, it made no noise when it landed. But I was totally 'on' today and flicked my eyes fast enough to see it land. The pencil landed on-end, cartwheeled across the carpet, then jumped a full foot up in the air, clearing the bottom shelf of the counter and the large cardboard box sitting on the shelf, impacted the back wal of the counter, and fell straight down behind the cardboard box. It I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have seen that pencil again.

That is pretty spectacular. If you hadn't seen it, but proposed it as a hypothesis to explain the disappearing pencils, many would dismiss it as an impossible stretch and prefer to ascribe the disappearance to ghosts. As I alluded to earlier I think a lot of "hauntings" are precipitated by similar freak, but perfectly physical, occurances which are so odd no one would even think to propose them. As soon as something freaky happens many people instantly assume "ghost" and never investigate.

My high school science teacher told us of the time he uncovered a freak cause for a ghostly whine that sometimes pervaded his apartment. For a long time he couldn't locate the source because it would die out before he found it. Then one day he happened to be in the right place at the right time and realized it was coming from the toilet. He lifted the lid off the water tank and saw the hollow copper float vibrating and he could hear that the sound was emanating from this float. He hypothesized that some restriction in the water inlet pipes or tubing was causing a vibration when the water flowed, which was, by complete coincidence, at the resonant frequency of the float. Next day he replaced the float with one of a different material and the ghostly whine never occurred again.

 

[DaveC426913]

Ok. Take a book that's near you, or a paper weight, or your cup of coffee.
Now set it at the other end of your desk to your right or left, but not near enough to the edge to fall off. Make sure no one is within many yards of you. Now turn your back on said object for, say, 10 seconds. Now if you were to turn back around to grab said object, but it was actually sitting on another desk, 10 feet away...thats the type of crap I am talkin about.

You see, now you are making up a completely hypothetical story, eliminating any mitigating circumstances, leaving bare only the unexplainable parts, and then saying your story is "like that".

This is no different than saying: "picture a semi-translucent apparition wearing shredded clothes, hovering in the air, saying "boo" - my story's just like that".


Look, no one is refuting what you experienced. But again: You've told the anecdote. What more do you want? Do you want us to try to analyze it? We'd need an objectively-told account of the events.

 

[rockhouse]

^I guess this was a testimony, and nothing more. I tried to show an example of the weirdness of the experiences with the "desk" idea. I was trying to put the skeptics in a position mentally to understand the circumstances and situation, and to maybe shed some light, (atleast mentally), that no physical explanations suffice for the experiences.
So that's it. I'm done here.

PS. I will leave you with an idea of what type of guy i am, (cause i know that most just roll their eyes reading this like, "another one of these UFO/paranormal guys"). Most people embed links in their computer toolbars of things of frequent interest. In other words, you can tell a lot about a person by seeing what links are in their toolbar.
Mine are, in order: Yahoo! Mail, Visajourney.com, youtube, The war room (Sherdog MMA), The Heavyweights (Sherdog MMA), Modern Day M-14 rifles, Science Daily, then this Skeptics forum link.
NO UFO, paranormal, area 51, ghost hunter, reptile men type crap...adios.

 

[waht]

My high school science teacher told us of the time he uncovered a freak cause for a ghostly whine that sometimes pervaded his apartment. For a long time he couldn't locate the source because it would die out before he found it. Then one day he happened to be in the right place at the right time and realized it was coming from the toilet. He lifted the lid off the water tank and saw the hollow copper float vibrating and he could hear that the sound was emanating from this float. He hypothesized that some restriction in the water inlet pipes or tubing was causing a vibration when the water flowed, which was, by complete coincidence, at the resonant frequency of the float. Next day he replaced the float with one of a different material and the ghostly whine never occurred again.

I think this is a very common effect. A sequence of events becomes incoherent if you have gaps in your knowledge. The missing but crucial details which complete the picture were omitted, and the overall effect appears magic, and unexplained. But what is interesting is how people immediately fill in the blank with an explanation that has to contain a personalized entity as an agent responsible for the effect that you experience. In case of noise in the house it's ghosts, in case of UFO it's aliens, in case of an earthquake it's the wrath of god. The details of these ideas people pick up from other people, but what stays unchanged is a tendency to suspect that someone is responsible, and disregard a natural phenomena, sometimes even if all the details of an event are staring in front of you.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think this is a very common effect. A sequence of events becomes incoherent if you have gaps in your knowledge. The missing but crucial details which complete the picture were omitted, and the overall effect appears magic, and unexplained. But what is interesting is how people immediately fill in the blank with an explanation that has to contain a personalized entity as an agent responsible for the effect that you experience. In case of noise in the house it's ghosts, in case of UFO it's aliens, in case of an earthquake it's the wrath of god. The details of these ideas people pick up from other people, but what stays unchanged is a tendency to suspect that someone is responsible, and disregard a natural phenomena, sometimes even if all the details of an event are staring in front of you.

Interestingly, many skeptics make the same mistake. One reason subjects like "ghosts" or "UFOs" are considered to be crackpot by name alone [as if all claims are the same] is that the presumed explanations are souls of the dead, and ET. Pop interpretations of claims are assumed to be synonymous with the claims, which is often not how the information is presented by the alleged observers. The skeptics are often the ones who push the crackpot or unjustified interpretations because it makes the stories easier to dismiss. It is a classic crackpot debunking maneuver.

I have never once argued for any particular explanation generally for ghost or UFO reports, and certainly not any fringe explanations, but you wouldn't believe the amount of grief I've tolerated for allowing any discussion of claimed observations - void of all fringe theories, by definition! The only explanations that may be suggested must be based in known science. But that has never mattered to more people than you would believe. Consider the irony of science-minded people who despise claims of unexplained phenomena - the heart and soul of science and the reason it exists! Heaven forbid that people may occasionally experience things that we just don't understand.

 

[GeorginaS]

Of course we experience things we don't understand. We live in an environment in which we understand far less about it than we truly know. It's a condition of our current existence. And I can accept a whole bunch of, "Yep, that happens and we have no clue why". What I have trouble accepting is inventing a rationale wholesale and immediately ascribing what we don't know or can't explain to supernatural agency. Just because we don't have a verifiable answer -- yet -- doesn't make an apparition the cause. Sometimes we just have to live with, "We don't know". Inventing ethereal beings and insisting on their reality doesn't forward the cause of knowing.

I know you know all of that. I'm just saying.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There is another interesting denial mechanism that I have noticed. I have often been amazed by the number of people who dismiss ET claims because: That conclusion cannot be logically extrapolated from lights in the sky. What is amazing about this objection is that many people claim to have had direct encounters with ETs - something alien by any reasonable definition. While I don't accept these claims, they do exist, and a few accounts are actually a bit compelling in that there were either many witnesses to the claimed events, or other supporting information that lends credibility to the story. So even if ET believers are all gullible [not saying so, just assuming so for a moment], they don't necessarily derive their beliefs from simple lights in the sky. To believe they do is to be equally gullible.

It is annoying because I don't defend the claims, but let's at least get the basics correct - that is ETUFOs 101, day 1. Frankly, if you don't know this, then you have no business commenting at all. "Lights in the sky" is just one of a wide spectrum of reports, some of which can be quite baffling. Personally, I ignore all ET claims but am fascinated by a number of well-documented encounters with apparent anomalies - unrecognized phenomena. However, it is also true I have no way to rule out the possibility that ET has been here. No one can. We have no extraordinary evidence suggesting that we have been visited, but there are plenty of claims.

The pseudodebunking game seems to be this: Assume all claims are trivial. This is true for ghosts, UFOs, and any number of odd topics.

 

[zoobyshoe]

But what is interesting is how people immediately fill in the blank with an explanation that has to contain a personalized entity as an agent responsible for the effect that you experience. In case of noise in the house it's ghosts, in case of UFO it's aliens, in case of an earthquake it's the wrath of god. The details of these ideas people pick up from other people, but what stays unchanged is a tendency to suspect that someone is responsible, and disregard a natural phenomena, sometimes even if all the details of an event are staring in front of you.

I think the reason for this is that when surprised, frightened, or even just completely confused, we can easily revert to a child-like state of mind in which it's easy to resort to anthropomorphizations. I, personally, still tend to feel anger toward machines that don't work the way they're supposed to, as if the machine was expressing some will of its own. I can also get angry at the amorphous and fictional entity: the situation.

Of course we experience things we don't understand. We live in an environment in which we understand far less about it than we truly know. It's a condition of our current existence. And I can accept a whole bunch of, "Yep, that happens and we have no clue why". What I have trouble accepting is inventing a rationale wholesale and immediately ascribing what we don't know or can't explain to supernatural agency. Just because we don't have a verifiable answer -- yet -- doesn't make an apparition the cause. Sometimes we just have to live with, "We don't know". Inventing ethereal beings and insisting on their reality doesn't forward the cause of knowing.

I know you know all of that. I'm just saying.

I don't think most people in the general population are interested in "the cause of knowing". In my experience they're more interested in feeling good by whatever fast and sloppy means are immediately available. Like I said back in post #6 one big reward for believing in ghosts is that sharing these stories can be a powerful bonding experience and it feels good to be in sync with your peers and relatives.

Another big reward is that having such an experience might make a person feel special, perhaps elite. In some people's minds having a vocalizing ghost in your house is a greater status symbol than a vibrating toilet float any day.

The other major reward is probably the biggest: if there are ghosts, then we survive physical death, and death is on just about everyone's list of top fears.

I don't think the rationales are really random (or invented wholesale). They serve psychological and emotional needs.

 

[DaveC426913]

Like I said back in post #6 one big reward for believing in ghosts is that sharing these stories can be a powerful bonding experience and it feels good to be in sync with your peers and relatives.

Bonding... in sync...

Hm, let's ask rockhouse if that's what he's feelin' right now...

 

[zoobyshoe]

Bonding... in sync...

Hm, let's ask rockhouse if that's what he's feelin' right now...

He should have checked for a campfire and the glow of a doobie.

 

[GeorginaS]

I don't think most people in the general population are interested in "the cause of knowing". In my experience they're more interested in feeling good by whatever fast and sloppy means are immediately available.

Yes, okay, I suppose I have to agree with you there, although the thought of that makes me tired. I wonder if it's a function of age (although I know so many people far, far older than I am who have no interest in trying to know either, so, maybe it's not age) that renders the idea of "the general population" so tedious. Apparently, or so reading and studying tells me, humans are hardwired to select for noting patterns (whether or not they exist) and, more often than not, opting for malevolent agency in the unknown. They're coping mechanisms that ensure survival in primitive conditions far more readily than avid curiosity. You're far safer believing that that unseen thing shaking the branches in the tree down the path is an angry ancestor come back to steal your food therefore causing you to run away than you are getting in closer to inspect and know for certain what it is.

That so many people, at this point in human evolution, continue to opt for default setting I find dismaying and disappointing, for some reason, although I truly have no right to that disappointment. People are who they are.

Another big reward is that having such an experience might make a person feel special, perhaps elite.

Oh, absolutely. My mother tells me, in hushed tones, all about her mystical experiences. It makes her so much more in touch with what's really going on in the world, you see.

The other major reward is probably the biggest: if there are ghosts, then we survive physical death, and death is on just about everyone's list of top fears.

Well, yes, fear of the unknown is, supposedly, the top human fear. And the biggest unknown is death, so it follows.

I don't think the rationales are really random (or invented wholesale). They serve psychological and emotional needs.

I used those specific words as a sort of shortcut. I understand that the mental mechanism involved isn't random or invented wholesale. What I was referring to was the invention or selection of the agents supposedly involved. In this instance, as an example, the person in the OP chose "ghosts" as the agents of the unexplained rather than "angels" or "faeries" or even mischievous "imps". Really, any of those characters could have as easily fit the bill in terms of unseen actors perpetrating the confounding deeds. That's the sort of random rationales and inventions I was referring to, not the creation of them or the belief in them to begin with.

In other words, yes, I agree.

 

[waht]

Interestingly, many skeptics make the same mistake. One reason subjects like "ghosts" or "UFOs" are considered to be crackpot by name alone [as if all claims are the same] is that the presumed explanations are souls of the dead, and ET. Pop interpretations of claims are assumed to be synonymous with the claims, which is often not how the information is presented by the alleged observers. The skeptics are often the ones who push the crackpot or unjustified interpretations because it makes the stories easier to dismiss. It is a classic crackpot debunking maneuver.

The definition of ghosts is along the lines of "a disembodied soul, the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear to the living in bodily likeness" (Webster). Hence, if somebody claims they've seen a ghost, how could one not presume they imply a soul of a dead person? In case of UFOs, the definition is understood by many to mean its reverse, that is it's an identified flying object from either an alien civilization or a super-secret military aircraft from area 51. Hence among the UFO crackpots, I don't trust them in their definition of the word, and am forced to inquire them in which definition they believe in.

However, it is also true I have no way to rule out the possibility that ET has been here. No one can. We have no extraordinary evidence suggesting that we have been visited, but there are plenty of claims.

Anecdotal evidence is probably the least credible evidence there is. Until one recognizes all the flaws of our own perception, there is no way to give an accurate account. So if there are really ETs flying around our planet, let them be discovered by scientific instruments, and not by sporadic accounts of UFOs, or cell phone cam quality videos.

The pseudodebunking game seems to be this: Assume all claims are trivial. This is true for ghosts, UFOs, and any number of odd topics.

I don't extend to parallel claims by inductive reasoning, rather than point out a general observation, and that is an innate bias generated by our own minds which craves anthropomorphization. Giving something unexplained human characteristics is a crucial jig-saw puzzle piece of explaining why do we interpret the world the way we do.

 

[zoobyshoe]

That so many people, at this point in human evolution, continue to opt for default setting I find dismaying and disappointing, for some reason, although I truly have no right to that disappointment. People are who they are.

They are, yes, and I don't think humans have evolved at all since they emerged as such, cro-magnons, something like 40,000 years ago. Instead I take what people loosely describe as "evolution" to be a cultural maturation which is the result of our ability to pass knowledge down to the next generation. That's tenuous and every individual born is at risk of not getting exposed to, or trained in, ways of reasoning that might be thousands of years old that could raise them above "default" level.

What I was referring to was the invention or selection of the agents supposedly involved. In this instance, as an example, the person in the OP chose "ghosts" as the agents of the unexplained rather than "angels" or "faeries" or even mischievous "imps". Really, any of those characters could have as easily fit the bill in terms of unseen actors perpetrating the confounding deeds. That's the sort of random rationales and inventions I was referring to, not the creation of them or the belief in them to begin with.

Yeah, I started pointing this out here several years ago:

You jump to say "ghost," instead of, for instance, demon, or pooka, or gremlin, because that's what the current conventional lore is about this stuff. As I've pointed out in several previous posts, even within a generally paranormal explanation, there is no good reason you should conclude this was the disembodied spirit of a dead person.

The fact you later found out someone had died in the house is pretty much irrelevant. It only seems signifigant if you already believe the spirits of the dead haunt their former dwellings. If you were predisposed to believe in demons, you would have assumed a demon was responsible. If you were predisposed to belief in Out Of Body experiences, you would have jumped to the conclusion that someone, somewhere was leaving their body and messing with your heads...

...When confronted with extremely weird happenings people are eager to sew them together into some kind of coherent whole. "Ghosts," or in this case, poltergeists ("Crashing or thumping ghost") have become the default explanation. This is really too bad since people start believing it is the right explanation, and start extrapolating the general characteristics and qualities of "poltergeists" from there.

Everyone pitches in. Someone decides the reason they throw things around is the same reason people do: they're angry and "unquiet" spirits. Someone else decides they must have led unhappy, frustrated lives and aren't evolved enough to pass on to "the next world" and so on. All invented, but passed on from person to person till everyone thinks someone with some "spiritual" insight actually determined all this to be true at some point in the past. All invented. No one knows for sure what's going on.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=684912&highlight=demon#post684912

 

[waht]

I think the reason for this is that when surprised, frightened, or even just completely confused, we can easily revert to a child-like state of mind in which it's easy to resort to anthropomorphizations. I, personally, still tend to feel anger toward machines that don't work the way they're supposed to, as if the machine was expressing some will of its own. I can also get angry at the amorphous and fictional entity: the situation.

This is also common, and I see this everyday in the work place: cries of "stupid machine is not working." There is a tendency to blame other people as being responsible for our inconveniences. But when there is no one to blame, there still is a need to blame someone, and so an imaginary someone is invented to directly blame. Although there are probably health benefits to this, as releasing anger is healthier than bottling it up.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This is also common, and I see this everyday in the work place: "this stupid machine is not working." There is a tendency to blame other people as being responsible for our inconveniences. But when there is no one to blame, there still is a need to blame someone, and so an imaginary someone is invented to directly blame. Although there are probably health benefits to this, as releasing anger is healthier than bottling it up.

I prefer to bottle mine. I make a good side income selling it to the D.o.D. ( R.Lee Ermy said "Looky there! I just demolished a WHOLE watermelon crop with ONE Zooby Bomb! That's a thing of beauty!")

 

[waht]

I prefer to bottle mine. I make a good side income selling it to the D.o.D. ( R.Lee Ermy said "Looky there! I just demolished a WHOLE watermelon crop with ONE Zooby Bomb! That's a thing of beauty!")

I'm still in awe that Ermy didn't blow himself up yet.

 

[GeorginaS]

Zoobyshoe, likely you've read a quantity of literature on the subject, but in case you'd be interested, there was a book published in 2009 entitled Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking In A Modern World by Hank Davis. It's a book written for lay people and is very well researched and properly cited and whatnot. Davis is an evolutionary psychologist and is a prof at the University of Guelph. The book is lucid, well researched and very clear.

I'm pointing you to this book as a matter of interest because what we're talking about is his central thesis in the book, that modern man in the Pleistocene epoch essentially came with and/or developed mental coping strategies that worked well for man at the time and were selected for because the people with those default survival instincts did in fact survive to perpetuate the species. He discusses how those synaptic connections worked well 50,000 years ago for the situations man at the time found himself in but how those same connections that we continue to own today don't serve us well. (I'm not explaining this well.) Davis explains or theorises about, then, why humans naturally list towards the supernatural and god/religion.

At any rate, I think it's a decent read, and I'd recommend it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Zoobyshoe, likely you've read a quantity of literature on the subject, but in case you'd be interested, there was a book published in 2009 entitled Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking In A Modern World by Hank Davis. It's a book written for lay people and is very well researched and properly cited and whatnot. Davis is an evolutionary psychologist and is a prof at the University of Guelph. The book is lucid, well researched and very clear.

I'm pointing you to this book as a matter of interest because what we're talking about is his central thesis in the book, that modern man in the Pleistocene epoch essentially came with and/or developed mental coping strategies that worked well for man at the time and were selected for because the people with those default survival instincts did in fact survive to perpetuate the species. He discusses how those synaptic connections worked well 50,000 years ago for the situations man at the time found himself in but how those same connections that we continue to own today don't serve us well. (I'm not explaining this well.) Davis explains or theorises about, then, why humans naturally list towards the supernatural and god/religion.

At any rate, I think it's a decent read, and I'd recommend it.

I haven't read that particular book, but I'm aware of Evolutionary Psychology. The same questions about why we have tendencies toward apparently counter-productive, outdated, primitive beliefs and behaviors, can also be addressed by other disciplines from a different perspective, and I'm persuaded that neuro-science has its toe in the best toehold. One neurologically centered book, Phantoms In The Brain, specifically addresses the limitations of Evolutionary Psychology in a couple, short but terribly incisive, places. I wonder if you read that book if if wouldn't also taint your view of EP. I'm not sure I could un-taint myself enough to give your recommendation an unbiased look.

 

[GeorginaS]

I haven't read that particular book, but I'm aware of Evolutionary Psychology. The same questions about why we have tendencies toward apparently counter-productive, outdated, primitive beliefs and behaviors, can also be addressed by other disciplines from a different perspective, and I'm persuaded that neuro-science has its toe in the best toehold. One neurologically centered book, Phantoms In The Brain, specifically addresses the limitations of Evolutionary Psychology in a couple, short but terribly incisive, places. I wonder if you read that book if if wouldn't also taint your view of EP. I'm not sure I could un-taint myself enough to give your recommendation an unbiased look.

I agree that the same concepts can be informed by and addressed by various disciplines at the same time and frequently overlap and compliment one another.

Thank you for pointing the direction to further reading. I've ordered Phantoms In The Brain and look forward to it.

 

[Chronos]

Perception is a cruel mistress. We routinely benchmark the unusual with hardwired responses. Science has little to do with it. Some would claim that science is blind - and I am content with that claim.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I agree that the same concepts can be informed by and addressed by various disciplines at the same time and frequently overlap and compliment one another.

I would say it's a good sign if they do overlap and compliment. It would strongly suggest some authentic insight has been arrived at.

Thank you for pointing the direction to further reading. I've ordered Phantoms In The Brain and look forward to it.

You will love it. It's a compelling, fascinating page-turner.

 

[DaveC426913]

I would say it's a good sign if they do overlap and compliment. It would strongly suggest some authentic insight has been arrived at.

I disagree. This "pretend tendency" has been used in the UFO-world to try to lend some credence to the field.

Consistently seeing "greys" and consistently seeing rotating-craft-with-bulbs-on-the-bottom makes it seem like there's some meat to the stories.

Bleh. Too early in the morning. I'll be more eloquent about that after waking up.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I disagree. This "pretend tendency" has been used in the UFO-world to try to lend some credence to the field.

Consistently seeing "greys" and consistently seeing rotating-craft-with-bulbs-on-the-bottom makes it seem like there's some meat to the stories.

What you're saying is "The plural of anecdote is not data."

I'm talking about something else entirely, the notion of disparate disciplines, say, sociology, physics, and art all overlapping in their view of something. I can't even think of a good example of this. That leads me to suppose if there were a good example it would be a significant indicator of authentic insight.

 

[DaveC426913]

What you're saying is "The plural of anecdote is not data."

I like this. Yes.

I'm talking about something else entirely, the notion of disparate disciplines, say, sociology, physics, and art all overlapping in their view of something. I can't even think of a good example of this. That leads me to suppose if there were a good example it would be a significant indicator of authentic insight.

But isn't it the same thing? If art, song and anecdote all talk about dragons consistently, does that make them any more real? The disciplines feed and nourish each other.

(OK, bad example. I should work a science in there.)

 

[waht]

Thank you for pointing the direction to further reading. I've ordered Phantoms In The Brain and look forward to it.

You will love it. It's a compelling, fascinating page-turner.

Zooby recommended me this over a year ago. I ordered it ASAP, and it turned out to be one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. This book is truly a gem on the nature of consciousness. And it's not based on some philosophy, but on real experimental data, and good observations.

 

[zoobyshoe]

But isn't it the same thing? If art, song and anecdote all talk about dragons consistently, does that make them any more real? The disciplines feed and nourish each other.

(OK, bad example. I should work a science in there.)

No, we're talking about concepts, not alleged phenomenon or entities. Let's take "tendency toward religious thought". Psychology offers a certain range of explanations for this, neurology offers a different range with a completely different center point, and sociology offers a third, also differently centered, range of explanations.

If all three disparate disciplines were found to agree on some point (a totally hypothetical suggestion, I can't actually think of a real example), then it would strongly suggest some authentic insight has been arrived at. (Meaning, merely, I would be sure to highlight it and look at it some more.)

 

[DaveC426913]

No, we're talking about concepts, not alleged phenomenon or entities. Let's take "tendency toward religious thought". Psychology offers a certain range of explanations for this, neurology offers a different range with a completely different center point, and sociology offers a third, also differently centered, range of explanations.

If all three disparate disciplines were found to agree on some point (a totally hypothetical suggestion, I can't actually think of a real example), then it would strongly suggest some authentic insight has been arrived at. (Meaning, merely, I would be sure to highlight it and look at it some more.)

Ah.[10 char]

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The definition of ghosts is along the lines of "a disembodied soul, the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear to the living in bodily likeness" (Webster). Hence, if somebody claims they've seen a ghost, how could one not presume they imply a soul of a dead person?

Why would one assume that they did, less pop interpretations of what they saw. The fact is that the label of "ghost" is applied to all sorts of claims that in no way imply anything about a soul. If you claim to have seen [and interacted with] a deceased relative, that's one thing, but that is actually a pretty rare claim. Most people report objects that move inexplicably, tactile experiences of various sorts, inexplicable temperature changes, and so on. How do any of these claims suggest that there was a soul involved? It is in fact crackpot logic to assign explanations when we can't even verify a claim.

Or are you suggesting that the only possible explanation for potentially unexplained phenomena, are ghosts, which you also argue do not exist? How is this not crackpot? Or are you arguing that there can be no unexplained phenomena; that we have absolute knowledge? If so, then why not just say that: We know everything and any reports contradicting this view are by definition, false.

In case of UFOs, the definition is understood by many to mean its reverse, that is it's an identified flying object from either an alien civilization or a super-secret military aircraft from area 51. Hence among the UFO crackpots, I don't trust them in their definition of the word, and am forced to inquire them in which definition they believe in.

It is true that some people mean ET when they say UFO, but many reports are simply reports of unidentified objects or phenomena. That is a fact. You can convolute the facts all that you want, but many of the most impressive reports actually come from military documents. I have never read one document that claimed the UFO belonged to ET. And I've read perhaps thousands of them [at least a couple thousand of pages of them]. Some reports are striking - they describe what was seen and what happened. Was RADAR contact established? If so, by how many stations or aircrafts? Was there visual confirmation by multiple witnesses? That is the sort of information that comprises a real report. Anecdotes that come with no supporting information are pretty useless. And btw, these reports come directly from government archives - NSA, CIA, FBI, DOD, etc. See the UFO napster for the .gov or .mil links.

There are plenty of interesting reports from commercial pilots as well. Does this prove ET is here? Of course not. Does it mean that all UFO reports come from idiots with overactive imaginations? Of course not. It is a simple matter of recognizing the facts for what they are. There are seemingly credible reports that we just don't know how to explain. Is that really so hard to accept? If so, then I suggest [generally speaking] that more of Zooby's psychology books might be in order. I would imagine it is a control issue.

Anecdotal evidence is probably the least credible evidence there is.

Did anyone argue otherwise?

Until one recognizes all the flaws of our own perception, there is no way to give an accurate account. So if there are really ETs flying around our planet, let them be discovered by scientific instruments, and not by sporadic accounts of UFOs, or cell phone cam quality videos.

You are still missing the point. YOU are the one invoking the demand for ET. While there are plenty of UFO crackpots out there, there are plenty of physics crackpots as well. Surely you aren't arguing [by inference] that since some physics devotees are crackpot, they all are? While you can point to as many crackpots as you like, that doesn't speak to the evidence; namely, official reports of military encounters with something we don't recognize. Could any of these encounters be with actual ET crafts? I have no idea. But to deny the reports themselves as the fantasies of gullible people is ludicrous.

How much time have you spent reading reports? Do you have any real basis for an opinion?

I don't extend to parallel claims by inductive reasoning, rather than point out a general observation, and that is an innate bias generated by our own minds which craves anthropomorphization. Giving something unexplained human characteristics is a crucial jig-saw puzzle piece of explaining why do we interpret the world the way we do.

Whatever your point here, I don't see what it has to do with the discussion. What I am saying is that much of the debunking is done by people who haven't a clue - they are ignorant of the facts and talking nonsense. If one [debunkers] wants to address the facts, fine, but don't make them up just to support the desired conclusion.

You, in fact, seemingly want to make this about ET instead of UFOs. Why? In many cases, at least, it seems that by invoking the name of ET, one can demand "extraordinary evidence" - which is really a demand for proof, not just evidence - instead of confronting the seemingly inexplicable, well-supported reports that exist. It is an avoidance tactic.