Do you believe in paranormal things?
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@Thenomain said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
@Arkandel said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
What were the results of your decades of research? What were your methods? Show me.
I...
You know, Ark, I know you really like playing Devil's Advocate (to a point where I suspect that you need some psychological help), but this takes the cake. You're all over the place, similar to the people who want to "disprove" global warming. I'd believe this was beneath you, but here you are.
First of all Theno, you are coming off as unusually condescending in this. And that's you, so that's a little bit more than most people.
Concerns about my mental health aside could you please point out where I was playing devil's advocate in this case? And what exactly am I doing that is 'similar' to people wanting to disprove global warming (!) ?
We have methods for this determining what is true and what is not. Scientific Method is not a stick we measure things by. It's a way we discover those measurements. The basis of Scientific Method relies on disproving its discoveries. Without it, it would be a belief system. But it's not. Scientific Method does not have an enemy in the Bible, against Flat Earthers, against ghosts, against magic, against even Intelligent fucking Design.
Er, well, yes. I'm waiting for you to come to the point where you disagree with what I'm saying strongly enough to warrant your initial position. I have the utmost respect in the scientific method and I was advocating it as the universal standard that it is.
And that's where I go from reading this thread with a modicum of interest to enough salt to attract all the deer in Ohio. (hint: there are a lot of deer in Ohio.) "Well, you don't really know-know, therefore what you're doing is belief" is the attack that the Discovery Institute has been doing to sell their snake oil as "science" to indoctrinate school children for the last decade or so.
You don't really know-know until you prove it. You can theorize anything at all and maybe you're right and maybe you are not. That's where the process of peer review after one is done formulating their hpothesis and communicating their findings comes in.
Usually I don't mind and even expect arrogance in your responses but I suppose in this case you managed to push a button. Congratulations!
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Let me turn around what you're doing:
Prove to me that my statement is wrong. Clearly you think it is. While I come up with my evidence, you come up with yours. This is what debate is for, not just one person saying, "That's interesting, but I think you're wrong, so convince me," without the other side doing the same.
And yeah, accusing your devil's advocacy as mentally unstable is mostly my frustration, because you do it preeeetttty much any time you disagree with something. Now you're trying to get me to come up with the evidence that you can openly dispute. If you want to be fair on this (i.e., not a devil's advocate), then do the same thing.
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@Thenomain said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
And yeah, accusing your devil's advocacy as mentally unstable is mostly my frustration, because you do it preeeetttty much any time you disagree with something. Now you're trying to get me to come up with the evidence that you can openly dispute. If you want to be fair on this (i.e., not a devil's advocate), then do the same thing.
I'll start with this part if you don't mind.
I don't mind attacks (which, frustration-inspired or not, that was); this is an internet forum after all and we all get flamed eventually, some of us more than others. But it seemed out of the blue to get personal about an issue I was trying to remain patient myself while dealing with someone who was, in this thread, wishing people to get cancer and treat them as respectfully as I could.
It also crossed a line - we've all hanged out enough around here to be peeved by each other now and then but certain escalations seemed rather unnecessary. It's like shooting the shit with the regulars at the hobby store, making fun of each other's fashion sense or taste in movies or whatever then someone goes way off the charts and insults the other's job or choice in partners. ("Yeah but you're in a dead-end job and your husband is probably cheating on you, you ... Trekkie!").
Think about it man, in the whole thread this made you salty enough but not the part someone was wishing people got cancer? What gives?
Let me turn around what you're doing:
Prove to me that my statement is wrong. Clearly you think it is. While I come up with my evidence, you come up with yours. This is what debate is for, not just one person saying, "That's interesting, but I think you're wrong, so convince me," without the other side doing the same.
And you would have been completely right if I had come out of the blue and asked someone that question. But I didn't, and in fact in this whole thread I didn't challenge anyone else, some of whom have posted about strange experiences of their own, to prove that it actually happened. However I did after this bit:
Talk to me about being open minded after you've spent over a decade researching this stuff in depth.
Part of the scientific method (I'm getting tired of typing that by now) involves communicating one's findings. Someone claimed to have done a lot of research on a topic which they deemed I couldn't understand or be open minded about, so I requested to see their results so we could find out.
I believe at best you could say my demand was out of place - I don't get to demand that, that'd be true - but devil's advocacy it was not.
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Okay, here's what I came up with. I'm not going to back-and-forth respond just yet, because I do have other things to do with my day. Later, perhaps? Perhaps.
@Arkandel said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
@wanderer said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
It's not about what I believe in, it's about what I know to be true. I had to know for sure, so I got off my ass and found out.
I don't intend to insult or mock your beliefs
You then mock @Wanderer for taking offense that you're calling the Scientific Method as "beliefs".
Or y'know, don't, and just throw fits at anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you.
I don't think you know what the scientific method is for:
The scientific method is simply the best yardstick we happen to have until a better one comes along.
Already answered. Position speaks against what you propose to follow. It appears to me that you are disagreeing because you don't like his tone, disagreeing to disagree. Devil's Advocate.
By which I mean to say; there is no room, zero room in any of this for defensiveness and emotional indignation. If Newton had posted his papers followed by "... and fuck you guys if you don't believe me!" things would be different these days.
You do know that a lot of scientists take much their work very personally and defend it emotionally, yes? No? They are human beings. As this quoted statement is emotionally charged from your end, maybe you didn't intend on any Devil's Etcetera, but it is certainly ironic in a face-palming sense.
You beat it into the ground:
Or y'know, don't, and just throw fits at anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you.
What does throwing a fit have to do with the science? Nothing. It has everything to do with communication. If you want to be listened to with a wider audience, you speak to them. Sure, I've digressed a little bit, but I want my wider audience to know that I sincerely think that science is not about being a passionless robot beep boop. Science doesn't care how emotional you are. It's the scientists, because we need to treat other people like people, and when one person says:
@wanderer said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
When you call it "beliefs" you're directly insulting me.
If you want to have a discussion, maybe don't reply how they're being emotional about something they feel strongly about.
It's possible—likely, even—that I'm giving the wrong term to what I'm seeing. But I saw two people who in normal circumstances agree go at each other's throats for little more than a slight disagreement. I felt that it hardly deserved the response that you gave it, and thus to me it looks like the same hammer-to-nail response that I see as arguing just to be right, when in truth it might just be how you disagree.
This included the phrase "everything is a belief until it's proven", which is such a gross (as in huge) oversimplification that I was assuming that you believed it as a truism. It's the truism that has caused so many arguments over what 'proof' is that I sincerely worry about the future of education in America. And no, I don't particularly know how I can help stop it other than occasionally be a right dick about it.
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@Thenomain said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
Okay, here's what I came up with. I'm not going to back-and-forth respond just yet, because I do have other things to do with my day. Later, perhaps? Perhaps.
Nah.
It might as well end here. I don't think you are fully capable of admitting you are wrong, Theno, let alone apologising. You possess an arrogance that sometimes makes it hard for me to relate to you; other days I gloss it over but today it just put me off.
I'm off this issue when it comes to you.
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@Thenomain said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
I saw two people who in normal circumstances agree go at each other's throats for little more than a slight disagreement.
How is 'I hope your children get cancer' a slight disagreement, @Thenomain?
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Isn't it ironic. Don't you think? When someone accuses someone else for not being able to accept they're wrong when they themselves show no evidence of being willing to do the same?
@Sunny said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
@Thenomain said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
I saw two people who in normal circumstances agree go at each other's throats for little more than a slight disagreement.
How is 'I hope your children get cancer' a slight disagreement, @Thenomain?
I didn't see that as part of what Ark was arguing towards or against. @wanderer should have been and was disgraced into the dirt for this statement (that is, it was disgusting of Wanderer to say anything like this, I absolutely cannot and will not deny this), but it's not part of the argument. It's part of my offense to Ark's method: He doesn't separate the two, but takes them as one discussion. I saw them otherwise agreeing on many points.
The "slight disagreement" I saw was the one about what is or isn't belief. You're right that I probably should have focused more on Wanderer's shitty behavior toward people, but I had a mix of having moved on and wanting to approach the logical end of the disagreements.
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If we're quoting Douglas Addams, I would say that the singularly most appropriate quote of his to be applied to this topic is "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
To weigh in, for all it's worth- the person who is advocating all sorts of spiritual enlightenment and awareness is the one wishing a terminal disease on the skeptic's children. Said skeptic, to my understanding, has not wished anything remotely similar upon the spiritual person. Not even a bunion.
To call such level of sheer and utter malevolent ill-disposition a 'minor disagreement' is a rather unbelievable understatement.
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What I saw was @wanderer coming in swinging from the start with behavior nasty enough that it -- to me -- removed all credibility to the extent that I am unwilling to take his/her word for shit, particularly when the argument seems to be 'yur dum because science is bad'. I disagree vehemently with their premise, but I have no interest in offering them even enough credit to engage. They're posting things like 'prove we went to the moon' and other utterly ridiculous statements. @Arkandel has been incredibly respectful given the babytown frolics going on up in here. He's actually extended enough credit to the person to engage seriously. Just because he is being marginally respectful, that doesn't actually excuse the crazy town going on.
How you make your argument is important. When one person is flinging runny shit and the other is holding up a shield and trying to talk them down, taking the shield bearer to task about how they're holding the shield is absurd, and it calls your own credibility and judgement into question.
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@Vorpal Technically he was wishing my daughter would get cancer because I downvoted him, not because I disagreed with his wacky "I know better because I've been alive for ten years" insanity.
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@Kanye-Qwest
... cancer....
for....
down-voting him.Ok. Fuck it. I'm just giving up attempts at diplomacy because the level of stupid just got too damned high, and so I say:
Maybe Mr. Thing over there should keep his nose buried in his Kundalini if he can't resist the urge to make like some crazed Baba Yaga stereotype by flinging deranged curses at people for downvoting him. What's next? Hoping a mountain lion eats someone because they scoffed at his socks-and-sandals combo? May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits for not validating his parking? Stop it. You're making opera singers seem balanced by comparison for fuck's sake.
Jesus H. Herbert Hoover Christ.
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@Sunny said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
How you make your argument is important. When one person is flinging runny shit and the other is holding up a shield and trying to talk them down, taking the shield bearer to task about how they're holding the shield is absurd, and it calls your own credibility and judgement into question.
As @Kanye-Qwest said, the cancer thing didn't come in until later. If someone wants to address that like you're doing here, then more power to you. In fact, that's kind of the point of these boards; to give power to those who disagree.
However.
If you think my seeing the other points separate as that idiot statement as something that discredits me, then more power to you. I think you're wrong, but since when does that give me, or anyone, the right to shut you down? This disagreement is pretty minor, in the grand scheme of things.
I'm going to get back to how this might tie in to my objection with Ark's posts. He said nothing about the more idiot response to Qwest. He made some vague responses that being emotional in science is Badness Incarnate (which was ridiculous), trying to shame being emotional on a level I thought was far, far too all-encompassing, like nobody in science is allowed to be a human being. I didn't see any shield, I saw a high horse. I saw more shit-flinging but from the position of righteousness, and that hits a button in me the size of ... did I mention Ohio already? Hm. Well, it's a pretty big button. I saw nothing noble in his response, like you seem to imply. Maybe Ark didn't fling as much poo, but since when must that be forgivable? I don't buy it.
I doubt we're going to agree on this, but there's where I am.
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Part of the problem is, no, actually, to a lot of people, you will never prove to them that we went to the moon.
It doesn't matter what rock you show them that we brought back, because that could have been cooked up in a lab or dug out of someone's back yard.
It doesn't matter what film footage you show them; because we're capable of making a hollywood blockbuster where people fly through the air, no film footage or imagery can ever be trusted.
And so on.
Have people hoaxed videos or other 'evidence' of any number of things? Absolutely. That we know. Many have admitted as much, even. Sometimes it's a simple prank, sometimes it's to promote tourism to an area, sometimes it's to gain some kind of credibility -- there are a lot of reasons people actively make stuff up like this.
Unfortunately, this is also the problem. "It could be X" turns into "because it could be X, it must be X".
Debunking frauds is important.
Claiming "we have the capability to hoax this, therefore we can't ever trust that any evidence of <type> is not hoaxed, even without any confession or suggestion that it has been faked" is pretty foolish.
There's a difference between questioning what one experiences because it falls outside the boxes they expect that things should fit into, and dismissing what one experiences if it doesn't fit in an already understood box as not having happened, or insisting that it must actually fit in one of those boxes even if it actually doesn't at all.
Questioning is awesome. Dismissing and insisting, not so much. That way lies folly and ignorance, from my perspective, while the former? That is how we learn things.
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Where is the outrage for me and my daughter?! Only Sunny cares that we are going to die of cancer (but she is going to die first so I can watch, apparently).
1 like = 1 prayer
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No, I totally get what you're saying, or at least I think I do. It's reasonable to separate out the sensible points and address those and just sort of try and ignore the crazy points. I don't feel the same way -- if I have to put you through a crazy filter (figurative you, I don't think Theno is nuts), then your argument is already invalid without some heavy lifting on your part.
Where my significant disagreement comes in, where judgement comes into question (and thus credibility) for me, is in equating out 'emotions in science are bad' and 'I hope your kid dies' as if the problem with them is equal. They're both BS statements, yes, but one of them is more worth engagement, to me. I don't have energy for the other.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
Where is the outrage for me and my daughter?! Only Sunny cares that we are going to die of cancer (but she is going to die first so I can watch, apparently).
1 like = 1 prayer
Not just you, man. I felt compelled to downvote, too. My kid is up on the chopping block.
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Well, it really comes down to this: Emotional arguments aren't worth the hankerchief they're sobbed into. "This is so because I feel it must be" isn't an argument, nor is it proof. When we're talking about science, or proving anything at all, how you feel about something isn't important unless the topic at hand is your feelings, your emotional health, etc (see: cases of emotional abuse, someone experiencing traumatic emotions because of a medication re-adjustment, etc). Emotions really have no place in science when they pertain the data itself. How you feel about the hard work you’ve put into the thing is entirely different, but if you’re letting your feels for your research project get in the way of noticing there are bigger holes in your hypothesis than a pair of fishnet stockings worn by Cher in the Turn Back Time video, you've made a big booboo.
On the supernatural front, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You are not called on to prove a negative. “Prove to me that ghosts don’t exist” is a nonsensical demand- it is the person who makes the extraordinary claim (Ghosts/Kundalini/The Afterlife/Patrick Stewart’s Old Age) who must present the extraordinary evidence- which includes conclusive evidence that can stand up to scrutiny and, ideally, reproduced. And to this day, no-one has.
And I was tempted to downvote, but I will never have children. So what happens then?
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I am trying to stay out of the emo drama portion of this thread, because I don't really think we need to be going there or prolonging any of that and the actual discussion is interesting to me even when it's frustrating.
Hopefully no one dies of anything due to this thread, obviously. Or loses any hair they're tearing out, or feels bad about anything in particular because this is a thread on a gaming board, or gets more than minor eye strain from rolling their eyes at any given perspective that's come up along the way (which is likely unavoidable in any thread here if we're being honest).
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I admit that I am frustrated that so many folks engaged with @wanderer on the topic and outright ignored the nasty. It encourages that sort of behavior.
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And I don't see where credibility is lost if someone does want to slog through someone's bad attitude to get to the salient points. Clearly I have to surround myself with people who know how to do that.
You can (should, I think) call them on the bullshit parts of their bullshit. It's how you can engage without encouraging it.
I hate you with every fibre of my internet give-a-damn. Which typically doesn't exist. So here's an upvote.
Let me posit this statement, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," is loaded. The existence of, say, telekinetic powers is extraordinary because of its lack of evidence despite repeated tests. "Claims require evidence." The important part is, I feel, later on with, "conclusive evidence that can stand up to scrutiny and, ideally, reproduced". This is just as true for Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity as Theno's Theory of Ghosts Really Do Exist Dammit.
Even these days, there has been vocal arguments and pulling of beards as to how we should be going around Doing Science.