Science and the Paranormal

Aisling&M

Well, I thought this might be fun to discuss freely and openly, obviously not inviting anyone to poke fun at anyones opinions or beliefs but to have an enjoyable time asking the question of yourself and sharing if you feel like it your own personal answer.

From what I know of science it is a process of posing a question, evaluating it in every way and coming to the most probably conclusion.
I do not understand why psychic experiences and telekinetics etc etc etc are considered even 'para'normal. Why can it not just be normal.......but new?

I think any scientist worth their weight in salt (some in gold) will admit that there are many many things as yet to be understood and some things that are yet to be defined by language that are even farther from understanding.
I believe this should be applied to the area of 'para' normal experiences.

My personal belief is that these are normal things. They are infinitely Special in my life and I hae the highest respect for them, but I do not think they are limited to a 'special few' with the strongest faith, most well spoken prayers or those who fit the profile. I think there are many from every walk of life who have experienced things regarded as paranormal that are to them Normal.

So this is the basic question......

How do you view 'para'normal subjects and Do you believe they require faith to be experienced?

(a) Interesting topics that you have or have not experienced that are within the realms of physical reality.......
or
(b) something that science has not yet accepted but can be reasonably integrated into logical thinking some day in the future
or
(c) delusions of a few misguided/hopeful people.....
or
(d) something else.....

Of course, feel free to answer anyway you want. The above are just suggested possible starting points

ladybirdirl

Hey there,

I'd really like to say B - that they will fit into logical thinking some day but I wonder why it hasn't happened already if that's the case.

I'd expand on what scientists do too though - I've always believed it to be proven once it's repeatable or once it can be made into a process (this is coming from my computer science background). Therefore 'para'normal will always fall out of this loop as you can't say 'in this room if I turn on an infrared camera I'll always get a pic of a shape in the corner'


when you look historically there's been so much that used to be considered evil or dangerous but is now commonplace (having a total blank at an example) However, anything relating to 'ghosts,spirits etc' still seems to remain at the very least questionable - that leads me ot think it will NEVER become mainstram or fit into logical thinking

Hope that makes sense

Ladybird

Zillah

Aisling&M wrote:

I think any scientist worth their weight in salt (some in gold) will admit that there are many many things as yet to be understood

I'd hope every scientist would admit that, its the very basis of science.

From what I know of science it is a process of posing a question, evaluating it in every way and coming to the most probably conclusion.
I do not understand why psychic experiences and telekinetics etc etc etc are considered even 'para'normal. Why can it not just be normal.......but new?

Unfortunately because when we pose the question "Does this guy have telekensis" and then evaluate it in every way, the most probable conclusion we ever come to is "No". You can put pretty much any paranormal ability in place of telekinesis there and the same happens again and again. Science has looked at most paranormal phenomenon and the answer is invariably "Not enough evidence to reach a conclusion" or "Evidence suggests that it is just a case of X instead of Y", where "x" is some other mundane explanation.


My personal view is that at least 95% of paranormal events/abilities are people getting confused/mislead about completely mundane things. The other 5% is either also normal, or its something weird going on. What the weird thing is I don't know, but the problem is that believers have a habit of just making up an answer as to what that remaining 5% is.

For example, lets say someone gets a premonition about a plane crash, doesn't get on their plane and it saves their lives. Thats weird and interesting. But depending on who I'm talking to, they'll insist that what happened was A)A guardian angel warning them, Their own psychic powers, c)Aliens warning them or D) A future self sending a message back through time.

We have no way of knowing if any of that is what caused it, and even if the vision was a genuine premonition, it annoys me that people make up reasons and explanations for what caused it or how it functions.

ladybirdirl

In relation to the plane crash

Isn't it better to have some semblance of a reason though - rather than just saying ' I dunno why that happened'?;)

I'll tell you why - if you think in ameteur psychology terms (and psychology is a science) then I'd be more worried about someone who goes round going ' I dunno why that's happening' rather than someone who believes the angels told them but believes it so strongly that it's affirming. If you were the 'I dunno' person would you in fact be on the 'disassociative disorder' list (ok I admit a HUGE leap there), whereas if you believe it was angels or your Granny Joan at least you're 'grounded(for want of a better term) in some sort of belief.

Hope that makes sense


Ladybird

Zillah

I'd argue the exact opposite. If you take all the information available, and there isn't enough to reach a logical conclusion, then you're very grounded if you admit "I dunno why".

Conversely, if you were to make crazy leaps like "It was my Granny protecting me!" or "Aliens from Alpha Centauri want to protect me!" with no evidence then I'd consider it not very grounded at all.

Isn't it better to have some semblance of a reason though - rather than just saying ' I dunno why that happened'?

Definately, but only if there is enough evidence to suggest that reason is correct, as opposed to leaping to any one of a million reasons, only one of which can be right.

6th

Zillah wrote:

I'd argue the exact opposite. If you take all the information available, and there isn't enough to reach a logical conclusion, then you're very grounded if you admit "I dunno why".

Conversely, if you were to make crazy leaps like "It was my Granny protecting me!" or "Aliens from Alpha Centauri want to protect me!" with no evidence then I'd consider it not very grounded at all.

Absolutely spot on imo. Personal experience may lead you to believe it was angels (or whatever) but thats down to personal belief and faith and should not be put across as fact. Even after all my experinces I still am more than happen to say "I dunno why" on a regular basis - having an opinion or idea is a different thing altogether.

kshiel

I'd like to go for B, as I think while science is a fantastic tool (if I can call it that) of our time and it has explained and created alot of our modern day living and gives people the safety of explaining where these tools have originated from, it still has not been able to complete say the full capactiy of the mind or brain but I am sure in many many many future years we will have advanced further into the explainations of this area also and hopfully Paranormal will become normal.

The plane crash, I am on two minds on this, one I think saying "I dunno why" is what people should say if they "dunno" but if a skilled person per say who is well advanced in the gift of psychic or mediumistic abilities and gets the message to get off the plane well then why should they make less of their belief and say "I dunno". Understandably that a belief is not a fact for all but to the a person, but alot of things started as beliefs and later became facts though people standing up for what they believed in, eg. going back abit and putting it simple but I am sure people thought that talking on a telephone was utter nonesence at some point in history.

Zillah

kshiel wrote:

Understandably that a belief is not a fact for all but to the a person, but alot of things started as beliefs and later became facts though people standing up for what they believed in

Beliefs became facts through diligent investigation, experimentation and analysis of facts

With your psychic example, what exactly do you mean? You mention "psychic" and "mediumistic abilities", but what exactly does that mean? If by psychic you mean "Can see the future", then yeah, it would appear that in our hypothetical example a person saw the future, or appeared to, so thats ok. If we take the medium example, do you mean that they're channelling the thoughts of dead people, spirits, fairies, what? If any of these then I'd consider that the sort of thing I was talking about above, what exactly convinces them the information is coming from these sources?

kshiel

Zillah wrote:

Beliefs became facts through diligent investigation, experimentation and analysis of facts

With your psychic example, what exactly do you mean? You mention "psychic" and "mediumistic abilities", but what exactly does that mean? If by psychic you mean "Can see the future", then yeah, it would appear that in our hypothetical example a person saw the future, or appeared to, so thats ok. If we take the medium example, do you mean that they're channelling the thoughts of dead people, spirits, fairies, what? If any of these then I'd consider that the sort of thing I was talking about above, what exactly convinces them the information is coming from these sources?

I agree with you on the beliefs becoming facts though investigation etc and because we are still investigating and experimenting with what the mind and brian are capable of and we have in some cases not reached a satisfactory conclusion for either side of the coin be it scienctific or otherwise, I still feel this is because we are only touching the surface of what we are actually cabable of and that science plays a very important role in the understanding and make up of what is currently deemed as paranormal.

With the mediumistic example what I was refering to is someone who has been practicing this skill and has in their own right accomplished a high standard of acturacy, what convinces them it is a guide or other form of spirit etc depends on how it works for them for example if the clarevoyant see the spirit say on the plane, a claresentient feels this person and so on, if this is something someone has experienced for a long time at some point in that persons life they will have gone down the road to see if what they are experiencing is real and through their own experimentation and truth of the accuracy of the information given to them they will at some point have to draw their own conclusion and I am sure for those who are geninue this is not an easy road to go down or are they always that easly convinced it is spirit.

ladybirdirl

Zillah wrote:

Definately, but only if there is enough evidence to suggest that reason is correct, as opposed to leaping to any one of a million reasons, only one of which can be right.

Why can only one reason be right? What if you did have that intuition thing going but there was also a storm mid flight or something to keep using the plane analogy)

Surely if science is based on repeatable, tangible,measurable outcomes then there would be no room for the 'I dunno' would there.

And if you extrapolate that again (and once again I'm into giant leaps again), how woudl science explain the more mundane then. For example Johnny smokes like a trooper for 40 years but never gets any lung problems.Mary lives in the lovely countryside,never smokes and has every lung problem known to man. If science says smoking is the single biggest cause of lung issues doesn't Mary prove that science can only go so far? (Ok you could argue genetic predisposition,chemicals etc etc) but on a pure and ismple test Johnny should be suffering not Mary


TBH I would be surprised that any scientist would not admit that there are things which simply cannot be explained by theory,reason,cause and effect etc

Ladybird

Zillah

ladybirdirl wrote:

Why can only one reason be right? What if you did have that intuition thing going but there was also a storm mid flight or something to keep using the plane analogy)

Not quite sure what you mean. If I put a ball in a box, and theres two boxes, then only one box it the right one... If I ask you to pick a number between one and ten then start guessing, only one number is right. If I see the future, then there was a reason I saw it and all other explanations for it are wrong.

Surely if science is based on repeatable, tangible,measurable outcomes then there would be no room for the 'I dunno' would there.

Science demands one of two things: Either you have repeatable, tangible, measureable outcomes or you admit you don't know. Science never claimed to have an answer for everything. Science claims its the best route for finding the answer to something we do not yet have an answer for.

And if you extrapolate that again (and once again I'm into giant leaps again), how woudl science explain the more mundane then. For example Johnny smokes like a trooper for 40 years but never gets any lung problems.Mary lives in the lovely countryside,never smokes and has every lung problem known to man. If science says smoking is the single biggest cause of lung issues doesn't Mary prove that science can only go so far? (Ok you could argue genetic predisposition,chemicals etc etc) but on a pure and ismple test Johnny should be suffering not Mary

You're kinda confusing statistics with science as a whole. Statistics have predictive power, so on average someone who smokes will have more lung problems than someone who doesn't. If we wanted to know why Johnny was fine and Mary so sick then we could use science to experiment and find out.

TBH I would be surprised that any scientist would not admit that there are things which simply cannot be explained by theory,reason,cause and effect etc

I would be shocked and appalled if any scientist claimed that there were things that cannot be explained by theory, reason, cause and effect etc.

A scientist could, in a philosophical sense, admit that maybe there are things beyond reason and cause and effect, but the point is we could never ever know for sure that someone some day won't explain it. Its like trying to prove a negative. Prove that there isn't an invisible, intangible ball hovering over my head, for example.

Aisling&M

"Not quite sure what you mean. If I put a ball in a box, and theres two boxes, then only one box it the right one... If I ask you to pick a number between one and ten then start guessing, only one number is right. If I see the future, then there was a reason I saw it and all other explanations for it are wrong."

IF you are happy one day and I ask you why.........is it not possible that a cumulative effect of different occurences caused you to feel that way.....?

ie you could have had a nice lunch, had a nice chat with a friend AND won a scratch card on the lotto........

6th

But thats about something subjective Aisling, what Zillah is talking about is different. This thread is called Science & the Paranomral and he's addressing it as such.

If we want to know scientifically why someone is happy then we first have to know what "happy" is.

Aisling&M

okay.......then how about simple chemical reactions.

for copper to oxidise you need the metal and the air (many more atmospheric considerations but limiting for the sake of the point). Two things needed to create the effect. one is the main element and one is the catalyst. But both are needed.

And I believe happy is a physical and scientifically quantifyable emotion. Seratonin and the like can be measured with in the brain as far as I am aware.


My point, simply put is that there are many things in the physical and emotional world that are caused by more than one trigger at a time.

6th

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054952825

Here's where something similar was discussed a while back. Started out here and moved to the Sceptics Forum.