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Topic: Paranormal - normal or para? (Read 23730 times)

Paranormal - normal or para?

Quote
Stevenson’s main claim to fame was his meticulous studies of children’s memories of previous lives. Here’s one of thousands of cases. In Sri Lanka, a toddler one day overheard her mother mentioning the name of an obscure town (“Kataragama”) that the girl had never been to. The girl informed the mother that she drowned there when her “dumb” (mentally challenged) brother pushed her in the river, that she had a bald father named “Herath” who sold flowers in a market near the Buddhist stupa, that she lived in a house that had a glass window in the roof (a skylight), dogs in the backyard that were tied up and fed meat, that the house was next door to a big Hindu temple, outside of which people smashed coconuts on the ground. Stevenson was able to confirm that....

I’d be happy to say it’s all complete and utter nonsense—a moldering cesspool of irredeemable, anti-scientific drivel. The trouble is, it’s not entirely apparent to me that it is. So why aren’t scientists taking Stevenson’s data more seriously? The data don’t “fit” our working model of materialistic brain science, surely. But does our refusal to even look at his findings, let alone to debate them, come down to our fear of being wrong? “The wish not to believe,” Stevenson once said, “can influence as strongly as the wish to believe.”

Ian Stevenson’s Case for the Afterlife: Are We ‘Skeptics’ Really Just Cynics?
Skeptics are often enough cynics, often enough they lack intellectual curiosity and, even though they like to think of themselves otherwise, they deny empirical data, not to mention logical conclusions.

Let's give it a try. What explanations do you have for the data? If you deny the data, then on what grounds? Further, what do you think 'reincarnation', 'rebirth' or 'afterlife' means and entails so that it should be denied?

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #1
AFAIK , many stuffs created nor developed just to make the Peace in Mind .

Psychology , philosophy , etc ..

once i read some article about therapy by psychologist using hypnotheraphy .

to hypnotize his patience to Look back to his previous  life  .



i perhaps  not understand  his goal .

IMHO that's just methodes

there are differences between  a Goal and a Methode .

and if some methodes looks stupid , but works .
then it aint  stupid .

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #2
That article already has lots of comments. I like this one.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #3

That article already has lots of comments. I like this one.
It's a long comment, provided that I landed on the right one (the one that begins with a complaint that the first attempt to post it failed).

What specifically do you agree with? With the general thrust that anyone interested in investigating the paranormal should be shunned? So, your stance is that investigation is okay, but not investigation of those things?

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #4
I'm gonna give this an "I don't know". I may have seen a ghost once. It was night, I had just gotten home from work (second shift at a factory, it was probably 11:30 that night) and something appeared to go from the coal-bin of our house to the neighbor's bushes. It looked like a woman in a white gown, and that section of the neighbor's bushes would hardly permit a rabbit to pass let alone a woman in a gown. But---- it was late, I was tired and it's just possible my brain was playing tricks on me. You know how it is when you're at that stage where you have micro-naps and you have a dream that seems real-- it could have been that.

You-Tube has lots of videos that show paranormal activity. Problem: I can't tell "for sure" what might be real and what is a magician's trick without actually going there and testing it for myself. Slamming doors, sliding chairs and bowls of fruit that fly off a table are all easy tricks to perform, I, non-magician that I am, could easily stage it. But--- it could be real. Can't tell just by the video.
What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Earth?
According to several tests involving a watermelon and a large hammer, it would be really bad!

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #5
Investigation is good, if someone cares. The amount of reasons not to take that case seriously are impressive.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #6

Investigation is good, if someone cares. The amount of reasons not to take that case seriously are impressive.
List some reasons that have impressed you.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #7
Summing just that comment up:

  • 1 and 2. He had a paranormal background, and worked in many kinds of weird stuff besides reincarnation. Bias on sight.

  • 3 and 5. He lied or misinformed about a town and about a rare malformation.

  • Other reviews stating that his works lack consistency.


Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #8

Summing just that comment up:

  • 1 and 2. He had a paranormal background, and worked in many kinds of weird stuff besides reincarnation. Bias on sight.

  • 3 and 5. He lied or misinformed about a town and about a rare malformation.

  • Other reviews stating that his works lack consistency.



And you have materialist background and anti-investigative mindset. The rest follows. You are very easily impressed when preconditioned.

Basically, for you reincarnation does not merit any study because nobody in their right mind believes it. In India, reincarnation does not merit any study because nobody in their right mind doubts it. Same diff.


Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #9
(Thanks for evaluating me, even as I haven't asked.)
You are right. Everybody requires a good reason to change their mind.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #10
Strange things happens. If we have the right tools for analyzing it, that's another story.
Like in UFOs, not everything are meteorological balloons.
A matter of attitude.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #11
My biggest problem off the jump is the study being done on kids. Children learn to read emotions and gestures well before they learn to use words. Probably the only time reading even micro-gestures is second nature. So can easily infer the wanted answer. That this all is more prevalent in a culture that accepts it is confirmation bias at its best. You'll have to go along way to get me to accept the data at face value. That I won't accept it off hand isn't any proof I'm unwilling to accept it, only that I'm not willing to take a leap of faith off one man's vision when he didn't look around much.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #12

Strange things happens. If we have the right tools for analyzing it, that's another story.
Like in UFOs, not everything are meteorological balloons.


What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Earth?
According to several tests involving a watermelon and a large hammer, it would be really bad!

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #13

That's the best comment yet.

I used to believe in the Greek and Roman gods, but I've grown skeptical since I quit drinking.

Seriously, I don't find anything in paranormal reports more foolish than Judeo-Christian beliefs. And I wouldn't attempt to convince anybody that my agnosticism makes more sense. Some things are beyond meaningful argumentation.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #14
all People is liar  , especially those holy man .

imagine , there is kid that Born Blind .
he keep questioning why must he , that born without vision .
and some day , come a BS Talker , saying some lies like , in his previous life he was a General of 1.000.000 army .

he not obey his king , and Betray him .
therefore he is cursed in the next life he will born as a man without Vision .

it will relieve pain in those kids mind , probably will reduce if there are Suicidal thoughts , etc ..


repeat that more and more in a good tone with music , etc  ...
and some people sometimes will believe that ..

since Human mind tend to believe something that  make sense , or doesnt make sense .
not what is right or wrong .


Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #15

My biggest problem off the jump is the study being done on kids. Children learn to read emotions and gestures well before they learn to use words. Probably the only time reading even micro-gestures is second nature. So can easily infer the wanted answer.

Quite true. I also see it as a severe limit of the study that only children are subjects. However, looks like Stevenson's results consistently steered him that way. Some of his conclusions (as cited in the article) are:
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First, he was convinced that there is only a brief window of time—between the ages of about two and five—in which some children retain these reminiscences of an earlier self. [...] Also, as with the Sri Lankan girl, memories of previous lives tend to occur only when something in the child’s current life jars the recollections awake (in cognitive science terms, a form of recognition memory). In other words, it’s mostly useless to “interview” a child about his or her past life, since—like remembering one’s dream from the night before only while lying in bed tonight—recall can’t be forced on the spot.


But I don't think your hint that children can fool us qualifies as a serious argument against the study. Yes, children can fool us, but we have to find it out and be above it. If we cannot do it, then we are no better than children and we are not qualified to rationally determine anything.


You'll have to go along way to get me to accept the data at face value. That I won't accept it off hand isn't any proof I'm unwilling to accept it, only that I'm not willing to take a leap of faith off one man's vision when he didn't look around much.

To me it looks like Stevenson looked around pretty much and made a case as serious as he could muster. Personally, I am not impressed by his results and data like this would not be able to sway me. His results demonstrate the severe limits of the so-called scientific method. In his results, if the subject didn't spontaneously blurt out enough falsifiable data that could be recorded and verified, then there would be no data. All data needs to be interpreted, and the danger with limited data is that it can only be overinterpreted.

If there are more ways to how reincarnation works, then it looks like those other ways cannot be empirically studied at all. Belfrager's observation is perfectly to the point here. Another point from the article:
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Interestingly, and contrary to most religious notions of reincarnation, there was zero evidence of karma. On the whole, it appeared to be a fairly mechanical soul-rebirthing process, not a moralistic one.

Given the entirely mechanical process of recording and verifying, it's no surprise that Stevenson found no evidence of karma. At least he was able to verify that physical traumas carried over in rebirths. But if rebirths are real and people are composites of physical, emotional, and intellectual features, then naturally emotional and intellectual impressions must get re-embodied too. It's all just a memory problem. Death and birth are the worst traumas imaginable, so no wonder hardly anyone remembers anything across rebirth.


Seriously, I don't find anything in paranormal reports more foolish than Judeo-Christian beliefs.

In my life I have met weird people with amazing capacity to confirm what they want to believe contrary to all evidence. Believers who have paranormal experiences, such as seeing ghosts, invariably think the ghosts are angels or devils. Atheists deny ghosts even when they are possessed by them at the same time. Most people want to see (and, consequently, they see) a familiar dead person in the ghost. A tiny minority of people with paranormal experiences is able to keep a cool head and approach the topic rationally, i.e. verify the nature/personality of the ghost and test if there's any trick involved. Children can fool us, other people can fool us, so can ghosts. It's our own responsibility not to be deceived.

Note that I am not saying that ghosts exist or reincarnation exists. I don't care what you believe. What matters is how you deal with reality despite of what you believe. For example, a monster in a dream is "not real", it's just a monster in a dream, but a person's reaction when encountering the monster in the dream is very telling. If it's not real, why do you get scared? How do you get scared of something unreal? So with all reactions. If materialists think they are thoroughly empirical, then instead of denying, let them deal with the empirical data.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #16
Ghost Existed in Mind .

So if someone Possesed by Ghost , take a bat and hit his head until unconciousness .

or give anti-psychotics drugs , instead .

anti delusion  , nor anti hallucination ,  mostly will remove ghost from mind .

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #17
If materialists think they are thoroughly empirical, then instead of denying, let them deal with the empirical data.

Nobody is "thoroughly empirical," however much he thinks he is. Monsters in dreams are real enough until one awakens.

When you write "empirical data," what do you mean?

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #18
Bandwagon is not empirical at all  .


try this  with some Paranormal .

analyse their sylogism using scientific proven methodes .

mostly they will do  "Special Pleading fallacy " .











Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #19
Paranormal should be left alone.

Way back when I was about 10 or thereabouts, my mother bought an Ouija board. This device was in our house for a couple of weeks before she got rid of it. In that couple of weeks we saw enough to know--- don't go near that stuff, it's not to be messed with. Whatever it is that powers that thing, it's mighty dark.
What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Earth?
According to several tests involving a watermelon and a large hammer, it would be really bad!

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #20

Nobody is "thoroughly empirical," however much he thinks he is.

Indeed. Usually they are empiricists up to a point, and the rest is denialism. Inconsistent people are hard to deal with.


When you write "empirical data," what do you mean?

I mean the data verifiable by means of the five ordinary senses. This corresponds to how the empiricists usually mean it. They don't consider the sixth, seventh, etc. senses any more.

Empiricism as per Wikipedia, "Empiricism is a theory which states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory experience, in the formation of ideas..."

In contrast, I am a rationalist.

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #21
False Evidence Appearing Real = Fear

some people are Denying they have that ..
and prefer make imaginary reality based on their Emotion nor state of mind .

Everyone have Fear , but excessice fear of something is abnormal .

Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #22
looks like Stevenson's results consistently steered him that way.

Curious there's no other direction to confirm anything he claims. One might assume he stuck to the area that gave the results desired.
If we cannot do it, then we are no better than children and we are not qualified to rationally determine anything.

Don't be so hard on yourself. They're little us-es. Their only job for a few years is to learn how to manipulate us.
To me it looks like Stevenson looked around pretty much and made a case as serious as he could muster. Personally, I am not impressed by his results and data like this would not be able to sway me. His results demonstrate the severe limits of the so-called scientific method.

I'll have to part with wiki on what's empirical to respond. You'd be wise to remove as much of the human element as possible in the data. Universally repeatable results are required not just human sensory observations. Or simply saying this person is sensitive to <blank> that I'm not isn't gonna cut it.

Moreover if I'm to walk down this path you now have to show it's not a result of some other "para" normal device. Not just the one he wanted and can't prove but some other thing that can't yet be detected not involving the soul being transferred. Telepathic transference would be an easier road for me to walk. Memories alone being transferred under certain conditions. There is no doubt the brain emits electromagnetic waves. To what extent it can function as an antenna or transmitter is questionable but gives a ledge to stand on outside how you or I feel about results. 


Re: Paranormal - normal or para?

Reply #24


In contrast, I am a rationalist.

Nobody is exclusively one or the other, so if you're a rationalist, you're so in a limited sense.

You are ridiculously anti-labellist, despite the fact that categories are inevitable. I am very conscious and determined in my self-definition.

You have no chance. Every word you use is a label. Resistance is futile.