Present Evidence for Paranormal Claims Here.

Standman

Quite often in this forum some people have accused us skeptics of being closed-minded, cynical, and arrogant. If you are one of these people, or simply have some evidence for paranormal claims, please post it here so as we can maybe put an end to the all the bitterness on both sides and just have a friendly discussion like it should be!

Please refrain from presuppositions about each others motives, because if the evidence is there then motives are irrelevant.

Again, let's stick to the evidence and forget about what you may think of the person you are discussing with.

Hopefully we can finally get somewhere!

iamhunted

i certainly cannot present any evidence for the paranormal. The only things we've ever found we dont understand are on audio and really - theres no way to prove to anyone that audio cant be faked (because it can obviously).

i think the only evidence that could convince anyone about the paranormal is some form of unexplainable paranormal experience - but that would only convince the person concerned as they'd find it difficult to prove it to anyone. The only way to do so is by capturing the paranormal bit on video or audio (which, outside of being there is the only way for someone else to experience these things) - both of which can be faked so again, its no proof.

This whole paranormal thing would vanish overnight if people didn't keep on experiencing it as theres no other way for anyone to be convinced imo. It's quite natural for people to be skeptical about other peoples experiences, but thats fine by me.

Skeptic_Desu

iamhunted wrote: »

i certainly cannot present any evidence for the paranormal. The only things we've ever found we dont understand are on audio and really - theres no way to prove to anyone that audio cant be faked (because it can obviously).

i think the only evidence that could convince anyone about the paranormal is some form of unexplainable paranormal experience - but that would only convince the person concerned as they'd find it difficult to prove it to anyone. The only way to do so is by capturing the paranormal bit on video or audio (which, outside of being there is the only way for someone else to experience these things) - both of which can be faked so again, its no proof.

This whole paranormal thing would vanish overnight if people didn't keep on experiencing it as theres no other way for anyone to be convinced imo. It's quite natural for people to be skeptical about other peoples experiences, but thats fine by me.

You assume that no skeptic has ever had a "paranormal experience". This is simply not true. Take me for example I have had many experiences which ,at the time, I would have considered paranormal.

Without tangible evidence of something how do you know what people are experiencing aren't natural phenomenon that are simply misinterpreted and exaggerated?

DANNY22XX

ive never had a paranormal experience what got me into it was trying to find out the causes of other peoples,,
so if you had an experience why so skeptical,,,

iamhunted

Skeptic_Desu wrote: »

You assume that no skeptic has ever had a "paranormal experience". This is simply not true. Take me for example I have had many experiences which ,at the time, I would have considered paranormal.

Without tangible evidence of something how do you know what people are experiencing aren't natural phenomenon that are simply misinterpreted and exaggerated?

It all depends on what experience you had. I wouldnt class, say, a fortune teller telling you your perternal grandperants name, fopr example, as paranormal. I would class (again as examples) hearing your name called, or whispering directly in your ear when you're own your own, or hearing people in your hallway when again you're on your own as paranormal if a) youre in a completely detached house in the middle of nowhere and b) you know theres no-one else besides yourself who could be walking around .. or calling names .. or sighing etc. How can you have experiences like that and think its misinterpreted? How can you misinterpret things like that? Common sense tells you you CANT hear you name called etc etc etc when you are on youre own in a house where the neighbours are too far away.

I dont know how well you trust yourself, but if I experience something I normally dont need to convince myself that I experienced it. Personally, Ive had experiences that I know - through pure common sense and natural deduction - werent misinterpreted or exaggerated. I think this is where i get confused between those who claim to be skeptical and those who may well be cynical.

As I say, I cant be cynical about my own experiences, nor sceptical but that doesnt mean I would expect anyone to believe me. I dont care if anyone does or not - if you need convincing about such things then Im not the man for you..

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

I dont know how well you trust yourself, but if I experience something I normally dont need to convince myself that I experienced it. Personally, Ive had experiences that I know - through pure common sense and natural deduction - werent misinterpreted or exaggerated. I think this is where i get confused between those who claim to be skeptical and those who may well be cynical.

As I say, I cant be cynical about my own experiences, nor sceptical but that doesnt mean I would expect anyone to believe me. I dont care if anyone does or not - if you need convincing about such things then Im not the man for you..

It would be hard to be cynical about your own experiences - that is true, but it is certainly possible (and correct, imo) to be sceptical. The brain is not a perfect instrument. It is possible for any of us to experience voices without any external source yet the subjective experience can be indistinguishable from real voices.

iamhunted

in other words its all in the mind. see, I think thats cynism as the only explaination you can come to is that the person concern is imagining things. its too black and white whereas for a skeptic, there's gray areas. unless you can state the person concerned has a history of hearing things that arent there then the imagining theory is every bit as dodgy as the paranormal theory.

as i said though, its really not easy to prove any of these things. even if you had 'proof', its easily faked.

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

in other words its all in the mind. see, I think thats cynism as the only explaination you can come to is that the person concern is imagining things.

Except that I didn't say that. I said that it is possible to be sceptical about subjective experience. I also said that it is possible for something to be purely in the mind.

I did not say that what you were experiencing was purely in the mind. I merely opened up the possibility that it was. That is being open-minded.

The closed-minded approach is to say that because you experience it is impossible to be sceptical.

pH

iamhunted wrote: »

in other words its all in the mind. see, I think thats cynism as the only explaination you can come to is that the person concern is imagining things. its too black and white whereas for a skeptic, there's gray areas. unless you can state the person concerned has a history of hearing things that arent there then the imagining theory is every bit as dodgy as the paranormal theory.

as i said though, its really not easy to prove any of these things. even if you had 'proof', its easily faked.

It's hard to 'prove' lots of things, for example the sub-atomic structure of our universe, yet Geiger started us on our way using a sheet of gold foil and the LHC continues this work today. I don't see any reason why any of the paranormal phenomena claimed in the last 100 years should have been any more difficult to 'prove'.

That said, if I was hearing voices whispering in my ear when alone in a house, I can see why I might want to cling to a paranormal explanation rather than the more obvious (and unsettling) mundane one.

Skeptic_Desu

It could be a little more complicated than just "in your mind".
Most anecdotes tend to become more exaggerated with each telling, so thinking you hear your name being called faintly eventually becomes loudly in your ear. After watching or reading something on the paranormal every creak or groan from the house becomes a ghost or angry spirit to the imagination.

This is not to mention the very complex psychological processes that cause alot of paranormal experiences.
I, for one, am bosom buddies with the ideo-motor reflex.

iamhunted

with all respect, Id ont think I'll be joining in on this one. i cant muster up the interest in having a tit for tat argument when the main 'skeptic' points all revolve around the same thing.

As skeptics, I implore you to adjust your idea of the paranormal as its a tad mundane and boring having to listen to this .... the paranormal doesnt always involve people who think creaks are ghosts or who prefer to believe in ghosts rather than wonder why they hear voices (the classic cynics theory).

seriously, its boring when ye's come out with the same old same old.

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

As skeptics, I implore you to adjust your idea of the paranormal as its a tad mundane and boring having to listen to this .... the paranormal doesnt always involve people who think creaks are ghosts or who prefer to believe in ghosts rather than wonder why they hear voices (the classic cynics theory.

But was it not you who said earlier "As I say, I cant be cynical about my own experiences, nor sceptical"

People were merely pointing out that it is possible to be critical of one's own immediate subjective experience. There are ways of helping use decide if what we are experiencing is real or merely a trick of the mind.

Standman

iamhunted wrote: »

with all respect, Id ont think I'll be joining in on this one. i cant muster up the interest in having a tit for tat argument when the main 'skeptic' points all revolve around the same thing.

As skeptics, I implore you to adjust your idea of the paranormal as its a tad mundane and boring having to listen to this .... the paranormal doesnt always involve people who think creaks are ghosts or who prefer to believe in ghosts rather than wonder why they hear voices (the classic cynics theory).

seriously, its boring when ye's come out with the same old same old.

Since according to you and in my own opinion there is no evidence for the paranormal apart from anecdotal, as a true skeptic it is not possible to just accept these claims as true. This does not mean however that we just dismiss them, but if there is no evidence to back up a paranormal claim it is logical put forward other reasons which may be more probable. These reasons can be more probable because we actually have evidence that they sometimes cause people to believe an experience was paranormal when it actually was not. I am not in any way saying that every person who claims to have experienced the paranormal is mistaken, I don't think anyone here has said that.

There is no way I or anyone else could know for sure if every single paranormal claim is genuine or not, but since there has never been any evidence bar anecdotal to support these claims, it is safe to assume that a purely natural explaination is more likely. Taking this into account, it is not in any way cynical for me to question the veracity of a paranormal claim, and in that questioning present other explainations which may be more plausible based on previous naturalistic explainations that have evidence to back them up. I can only speak for myself but from what I have seen on this forum it seems that other skeptics are on the same page, which is why I have trouble understanding why you constantly insinuate that we are being cynical and closed minded.

Personally I would genuinely love if there were some concrete evidence for the paranormal, because it would open up a whole new world of Science that could be the most intriguing yet!

more tea vicar

What if a paranormalist was locked in a lead lined boxed, would they be able to foretell the sequence of a shuffled pack of cards.

If just ten cards were picked from the pack, could they correctly tell the order of the ten cards.

I would bet one hundred euros that they could not even guess one card picked from the deck, even if someone was skillfully hitting their box with a large stick and the ace of clubs was selected.

What card am I holding now? If you were going to say the six of diamonds .. wrong, that proves it is all a big set up.

Oryx

more tea vicar wrote: »

What if a paranormalist was locked in a lead lined boxed, would they be able to foretell the sequence of a shuffled pack of cards.

If just ten cards were picked from the pack, could they correctly tell the order of the ten cards.

I would bet one hundred euros that they could not even guess one card picked from the deck, even if someone was skillfully hitting their box with a large stick and the ace of clubs was selected.

What card am I holding now? If you were going to say the six of diamonds .. wrong, that proves it is all a big set up.

What do you mean by the word paranormalist?*

*I know the official definition.

iamhunted

Standman wrote: »

Since according to you and in my own opinion there is no evidence for the paranormal apart from anecdotal, as a true skeptic it is not possible to just accept these claims as true. This does not mean however that we just dismiss them, but if there is no evidence to back up a paranormal claim it is logical put forward other reasons which may be more probable. These reasons can be more probable because we actually have evidence that they sometimes cause people to believe an experience was paranormal when it actually was not. I am not in any way saying that every person who claims to have experienced the paranormal is mistaken, I don't think anyone here has said that.

There is no way I or anyone else could know for sure if every single paranormal claim is genuine or not, but since there has never been any evidence bar anecdotal to support these claims, it is safe to assume that a purely natural explaination is more likely. Taking this into account, it is not in any way cynical for me to question the veracity of a paranormal claim, and in that questioning present other explainations which may be more plausible based on previous naturalistic explainations that have evidence to back them up. I can only speak for myself but from what I have seen on this forum it seems that other skeptics are on the same page, which is why I have trouble understanding why you constantly insinuate that we are being cynical and closed minded.

Personally I would genuinely love if there were some concrete evidence for the paranormal, because it would open up a whole new world of Science that could be the most intriguing yet!

if you arent being cynical then I'll take your word for it. I still think though that you cant sit back and slag off paranormal research groups as they are bothering to do what some skeptics dont bother doing .. ie instead of just talking, going out there and checking out any so called claims of the paranormal that they hear about or are contacted about (I say some as many skeptics are very involved in paranormal research).

I will readily admit that so far, Leinster Paranormal hasnt really found a lot (minus some EVPs which really we cant say is paranormal until we can fathom just how evps are created). Thing is though, Ive had experiences of my own that theres no way in hell can be put down to anything other than having really happened (and i say that well aware of the comment on the previous page which thinks any such things are a sign of madness .... not so Im afriad in this instance) so to date all i can say about the paranormal is that I do believe theres something to it, but its occurances are extremely rare.

iamhunted

more tea vicar wrote: »

What if a paranormalist was locked in a lead lined boxed, would they be able to foretell the sequence of a shuffled pack of cards.

If just ten cards were picked from the pack, could they correctly tell the order of the ten cards.

I would bet one hundred euros that they could not even guess one card picked from the deck, even if someone was skillfully hitting their box with a large stick and the ace of clubs was selected.

What card am I holding now? If you were going to say the six of diamonds .. wrong, that proves it is all a big set up.

isnt that more a card/magician thing rather than the paranormal?

Oryx

iamhunted wrote: »

isnt that more a card/magician thing rather than the paranormal?

Thats why I asked about the paranormalist reference. It just sounded like a card trick thing to me and I wondered about the relevance. By describing extreme set ups like that it seems to me the poster wishes to suggest that anything paranormal is ridiculous and only worthy of mockery.

iamhunted

if someone thought that then surely they must be able to explain just what the paranormal is. I wish someone would explain it to me .....

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

if someone thought that then surely they must be able to explain just what the paranormal is. I wish someone would explain it to me .....

What is hard to understand about it? It's a tricky word to define and people use it in different ways but I don't see it as particularly mystifying.

iamhunted

my psychic powers are telling me you've probably misunderstood me. the word is just used to describe various and differing things people find inexplicable.

If someone can explain all the inexplicable bits to me then I'll be grand.

iamhunted

my psychic powers are also telling me that 'inexplicable' probably isnt a real word - actually after some googling, I find it is. damned psychic powers are obviously on the blink

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

my psychic powers are telling me you've probably misunderstood me. the word is just used to describe various and differing things people find inexplicable.

If someone can explain all the inexplicable bits to me then I'll be grand.

OK, so we agree roughly on what the word means. I think the assumption behind your question is that there must be something in the world "out there" that the word "paranormal" refers to and that requires explanation. The other possibility is that it is merely a concept and to understand it is merely to understand its meaning.

iamhunted

as in 'I understand an elephant is a big animal, therefore elephant means a big animal, therefore I understand the elephant as I know its a big animal'?

if you are saying that once you understand what a word means then you understand the complications of that word ... i cant agree on that as I might have an idea of what the word paranormal means but that doesnt explain to me what the paranormal is. I think thats the assumptions that is often incorrectly made and leads to the downfall of most of the skeptical argument.

Dont get me wrong, its wise to be skeptical but we also need to understand we dont know everything and if people makes claims of the paranormal and we cant definitely prove the claim wrong then one cant say one knows the answer. unless of course we go back to the idea that skeptics do indeed know the answers.

If the paranormal as we know it is understood by sceptics then please, share the information - thats basically the same as "If someone can explain all the inexplicable bits to me then I'll be grand" ... its a bit more complication than the dictictionary's decription of the word 'paranormal'. .

(please note, this is the second time in this thread Ive had to repeat the same information)

SkepticOne

No one can explain the inexplicable. This is true, but it is true by definition, not because there's anything out there that is inexplicable. It does not provide any information about the world. It is a mere tautology.

The point I am trying to make is that when we say something is inexplicable, obviously we mean that at the current point in time we can't see how it might be explained. But this is a statement about us at a point in time rather than the phenomenon in question. Who are we to say that something won't be explained in the future.

As Hippocrates said about epilepsy back in the 5th century BC

It is thus with regard to the disease called Sacred: it appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause from the originates like other affections. Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder, because it is not at all like to other diseases. And this notion of its divinity is kept up by their inability to comprehend it, and the simplicity of the mode by which it is cured, for men are freed from it by purifications and incantations. But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead of one there are many diseases which would be sacred; for, as I will show, there are others no less wonderful and prodigious, which nobody imagines to be sacred. The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful. And I see men become mad and demented from no manifest cause, and at the same time doing many things out of place; and I have known many persons in sleep groaning and crying out, some in a state of suffocation, some jumping up and fleeing out of doors, and deprived of their reason until they awaken, and afterward becoming well and rational as before, although they be pale and weak; and this will happen not once but frequently. And there are many and various things of the like kind, which it would be tedious to state particularly.

At that time epilepsy was thought of as divine. Hippocrates had the foresight, however, to realise that just because something is not understood at one time does not mean it will continue that way.

So the point is that a specific phenomenon might not have an explanation at present, but the idea that something might not have an adequate explanation is not, in itself, hard to understand.

iamhunted

i can honestly see where you are coming from and its something I agree with - right now we call these things inexplicable as at the minute we dont know what the story is. my point though is that unless someone is trying to figure it out, we'll never find out what the story is. ergo, paranormal research is important. eventually, you never know, we mightnt need the term 'paranormal' but for the meantime we do, as it covers events not easily explained (though mind you a lot of the skeptical arguments are based around magicians and mediums which sometimes can be explained really easily)

Im glad to see you've highlighted a point ive been trying to make on here for ages.

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

i can honestly see where you are coming from and its something I agree with - right now we call these things inexplicable as at the minute we dont know what the story is. my point though is that unless someone is trying to figure it out, we'll never find out what the story is. ergo, paranormal research is important. eventually, you never know, we mightnt need the term 'paranormal' but for the meantime we do, as it covers events not easily explained (though mind you a lot of the skeptical arguments are based around magicians and mediums which sometimes can be explained really easily)

Im glad to see you've highlighted a point ive been trying to make on here for ages.

There has been research on a lot of this stuff. For example to quote you on a thread in the Paranormal forum:

my wife, a few years ago in our house, experienced much the same thing - and she swears it certainly was not her mind playing tricks. she heard her name called in succession and she was wide awake but there was no-one else in the house (i was gigging) and it was about 2 in the morning as she was reading a book. we never found out what the story was.

Consider this from the BBC:

Voices in the head 'are normal'
Hearing voices in your head is so common that it is normal, psychologists believe. Dutch findings suggest one in 25 people regularly hears voices.
Contrary to traditional belief, hearing voices is not necessarily a symptom of mental illness, UK researchers at Manchester University say.
Indeed, many who hear voices do not seek help and say the voices have a positive impact on their lives, comforting or inspiring them.

Now the precise reason why some people here them and other's don't may require further research, but it does look like a neurological explanation is possible.

Something can seem to be totally real from a subjective point of view but by going beyond our immediate subjective experience we can determine the extent to which our experience is real.

I'm in favour of research into the paranormal and I have proposed experiments on this very forum to determine the truth of certain paranormal claims.

iamhunted

to be fair, at that stage in our house that wasnt an isolated case. radios were turning off and on at all hours on their own (we went through the whole 'was it a preset alarm' etc thing) and every member of the family was hearing voices - none of which has happened since. Granted, Im not saying its paranormal, considering that I could never manage to capture any of it on video or audio to analyse, but it makes the all in the mind theory that less likely - unless of course it was some form of temporary environmental pollution that we dont know about yet.

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

to be fair, at that stage in our house that wasnt an isolated case. radios were turning off and on at all hours on their own (we went through the whole 'was it a preset alarm' etc thing) and every member of the family was hearing voices - none of which has happened since.

I can't say what is going on here. It could be many things. But if your car broke down, I also could not say what is wrong with it. But my inability to tell what is wrong with your car isn't evidence of the paranormal.

Unless it breaks down whenever someone inside says the word beelzebub.

Actually I would love it if I knew of some phenomenon like that. That would be genuinely intriguing.

???

I can make it happen. Give me two weeks and your car keys!

iamhunted

SkepticOne wrote: »

I can't say what is going on here. It could be many things. But if your car broke down, I also could not say what is wrong with it. But my inability to tell what is wrong with your car isn't evidence of the paranormal.

Unless it breaks down whenever someone inside says the word beelzebub.

Actually I would love it if I knew of some phenomenon like that. That would be genuinely intriguing.

for a certain amount of time a lot of stuff like that went on - i heard what sounded like either a shelf or a picture fall from the wall (as in I could clearly hear two sounds - the noise of it detaching form the wall and the noise of it hitting the ground) but nothing had fallen off anywhere, as i said, electrical devices were turning themselves on at all hours of the night, very loud bangs and thumps, voices that more than one person could hear - lots of stuff, but then it all stopped as quick as it started.

Ive scratched my head a lot over that.

SkepticOne

iamhunted wrote: »

for a certain amount of time a lot of stuff like that went on - i heard what sounded like either a shelf or a picture fall from the wall (as in I could clearly hear two sounds - the noise of it detaching form the wall and the noise of it hitting the ground) but nothing had fallen off anywhere, as i said, electrical devices were turning themselves on at all hours of the night, very loud bangs and thumps, voices that more than one person could hear - lots of stuff, but then it all stopped as quick as it started.

I can't say what was going on there. Obviously there's the standard paranormal explanation involving ghosts and such. I don't find these explanations particularly satisfying or interesting, but I think it is fair to say that since the events are in the past we will never know the cause or causes. The only thing worth doing, imo, is to work out how to investigate things objectively should these events start again.

more tea vicar

Oryx wrote: »

What do you mean by the word paranormalist?*

*I know the official definition.

I have a paranormalist type fella down my road, always trying to dabble in witch craft and stuff with tarot cards and dowsing rods and things like that. It is all a bit odd.

He wants to dress up as a cherikee injun and summon spirits and that sort of thing.

more tea vicar

iamhunted wrote: »

isnt that more a card/magician thing rather than the paranormal?

All the cards and things used with the paranormalists, sure thats what they use to contact the occult and foretell things of the strange side of the ether.

iamhunted

so you believe anything to do with the paranormal is all based around mediums then eh?