Pssst! They call it “dark matter” now. Well, at least I do because the first time I heard it described I said, “Hey, isn’t that æther with a new name?” 
One thing to consider on this topic is, that the rules of science is absolute(until proven otherwise) and although evidence of ghosts etc have surfaced (videos,EVP’S)there is no evidence that all ghosts etc are the same. If a ghost is real, IE a person with a personality then science breaks down as you have to make assumes based on guesswork.
for example. If you push me…i will push back, but you push my brother… and he might walk away, You can not guarantee a result based on a choice of someone/thing you dont know.
So the only way to establish rules for a scientific study, would be to previously set up rules before the person dies, and hope they become a ghost,which can interact with you, and,finally, remembers those rules. All of which is mute of course, because if they you did all those things then you have proven your belief already.
The other question would have to be how in control is a ghost. I watch and enjoy Ghost Hunters and several times they will be getting some kind of communication…and then nothing. You the question has to be pondered, did the ghost willing leave or did it slip out of"sight" by some other means.
The other main problem with paranormal science is you can never conduct it under controlled conditions, with ghosts, its not like they can come to the lab, and any person being studied could be adversely affected by merely being observed, from stress or something we do not understand. I remember reading about a experiment involving the action of particles or similar and the very act of observing messed up the experiment. (it involved passing a beam past a grated screen, and they always did the opposite of what they should have…unless it was being recorded)
Also it should be considered that science works in different ways under different systems, there is not just physics, there is quantum, particle and stellar for example so there it is not unlikely that there could well be needed a different branch of science required to study the paranormal.
I believe that the main problem facing serious science is perception of the study itself, just as the study of UFO’s etc are met in professional circles. Personally i think there is more evidence of ghosts etc than in any religion belief, but it would be impolite to mock a religious belief, but not a UFO “nut”. Not that i wish to turn this topic towards religion, but that fact should be noted. Popular culture have tainted the subject by and large.
It also comes down to what you believe is proof. Firstly the person handing over the proof must be trusted. It must be studied and verified to be without deception. And shown to not occur on some known cue, therefore it cant be duplicated willingly by the same actions, some unknown force had to do it.
The only real experiment to show proof would be to buy a isolated haunted location, have 24 hour guards surround the perimeter completely, have every inch of the building,inside and out, covered by video cameras, on all spectrums of light. Numerous “trigger” objects, such as toys, keys,books etc, likely to be interacted with by a spirit. And audio recorders in every location also. And even then if anything is captured, the viewer at home, can not verify the details, as it all comes down to trust. Which in this case is not good enough. Which is odd if you think and realise that almost everything you “know” about science is based on trust. Unless you actually are a scientist you cant actually prove 99% of what you “know” about the universe, you just have to trust that they knew what they were doing, and are not making it up.
Now obviously it is more likely that a thousand scientists are not going to lie to you in ever textbook (although you could wonder how many have actually done the experiment) and that someone trying to prove the existence of ghosts could tip the scales to show something inaccurately. But most ghost hunters are not professionally trained, you do not need a degree to claim you saw or heard something which was not there. That is how most ghost hunters get involved i would assume. Having a real experience(or perceiving to have had one) is far more likely to convince you than a grainy video on youtube.
Also the fact no qualifications are needed anyone can claim anything, and damage the image of anyone involved in the topic, and in paranormal studies that is more true than in anything else. To touch again on religion for the purpose of analogy. A pastor is found to be living outside of the teaching of his faith, then it was a challenge set by God to test their faith, or they had a lapse of faith. Whereas a paranormal investigator claims he made it all up, every non believer can claim,“well thats what they all do” that is particularly true in the case of psychics.
On the point of 100 years of research and no proof, only in the past few years,with the birth of digital video, have they been cost effective enough for a self funded amateur to garner proof and not just stories, akin to legends.
I do think that the entire gamut of the paranormal do warrant investment of time,money and thought as there is enough evidence to suggest it is not unfounded, and it has the potential of vastly changing our perception of the world in which we live, and the lives we lead on it, and after it.
And just as a PS if i ever win the lotto, i am buying me a haunted mansion and a bunch of video cameras and streaming it all on the net… at least it will be something to do inbetween basking in my room full of 100 dollar bills!
The problem is if you try to study it you will not see it, the harder you study the less you will find it. The less you study the more you will find. Study is of the physical world, the harder we look at the physical the less we can sense the spiritual.
It is sort of like those magic eye posters, where if you focus on them you don’t see much of anything, but if you don’t focus on by can focus past that, you can see those amazing 3d pictures. in the sense of physical vs. spiritual, science can only focus on the poster itself, while turning off the ability to see the dots, the picture becomes clear.
That’s a very flawed analogy, since you can see the 3-d pictures if you look for them the right way; a better comparison would be the pink elephant in your room that’s only there when no-one’s looking.
I remember having similar thoughts about Exodus 7:10-12. Aaron throws down his staff before the Pharaoh and it becomes a snake. Okay, cool, he’s got God on his side. But then the Pharaoh summons wise men and sorcerers, and they throw their staffs and also turn them into snakes. I gotta figure if they had abilities like this, Egypt shouldn’t been clobbered by the Assyrians ~700 years later. I mean, with refinement of whatever technique they used to make sticks into snakes, you’d think they could turn rocks into raving hordes of bloodthirsty baboons and throw them at the advancing armies.
There are plenty of instances where a certain person can play the piano beautifully in the privacy of their own home, but simply wilts and can’t play at all when they try a public performance. And any teacher has met plenty of students who can complete any problem on a homework assignment, but simply can’t do the same types of problems on tests. One of my fellow graduate students was a brilliant mathematician, but also highly erratic. As he put it in his own words, “Some days I can think, and some days I wake up and I just can’t think.” The bottom line is that when the element of human freedom is involved, there’s no such thing as replication.
I concluded a long time ago that this is no reason at all to then conclude that studies of the paranormal are useless.
You are ignoring that to help others and be useful for something eventually anything will have show some effectiveness even for people that do not believe, I always find that in the end the people proposing that spirits, souls and other things like that will say that the presence of skeptics prevents them from doing their miracles.
But that is the point also IMHO.
Because I much rather get my intelligence from a bloke with a cellphone camera than a guy that claims to have remote viewing abilities when I know before hand that the remote viewer will fail when a single intelligence member just makes even a peep on not believing the hooey from the remote viewer.
And yet the fact remains that even if you are correct, in the end, all those brilliant people mentioned by you do find a way to demonstrate their worth to all as the fruits of their work accumulate.
In the case of the paranormal proponents the work is not accumulating, it continues to drift aimlessly.
It’s a analogy someone grounded in the world can understand, as such is pretty dead on. While I could use the pink elephant, someone grounded in the world can’t understand how it is possible and their brain can’t accept it. The magic eye pictures also work to show that the spiritual is a opening of a flat world onto a much greater dimension.
Another analog is looking at flatlands (a 2d world), science can only study what is visible in that 2d realm, while the spiritual can see in 3d. The harder science looks in 2d the less it has the capability of seeing 3d, as you need something else to understand and open up that world to you.
As you know, this place is generally about fighting ignorance, not spreading it around. If I read your assertion correctly, you are suggesting that because you have a spiritual awareness or outlook, you can see, detect or know about things that other people cannot see, detect or know about.
May I ask if you accept that this proposition cannot be subtantiated or verified in any way, either by good evidence or good reasoning? If you disagree, what is the good evidence or good reasoning involved?
May I also ask how you are able to distinguish between the things you can see, detect or know about using your spiritual awareness and things that are delusions, dreams and fantasies entirely divorced from reality and real life? In other words, how do you check? This is an important point, because there have been people whose ‘spiritual awarness’ led them to the ‘knowledge’ that god wanted them to further his work by (a) flying planes into the Twin Towers or (b) slaughtering prostitutes.
Finally, may I ask if you know what ‘falsifiability’ means (as typically associated with philosopher Karl Popper)? If so, may I ask what steps you have taken, if any, to falsify your assertion that ‘someone who has a spiritual awareness or outlook can see, detect or know about things that other people cannot see, detect or know about.’
So? Let them do their thing on their own terms. No one here has suggested anything else. If they need to be alone to do it, put a camera or something in the room with them. If they can only do it at home and not on a test, then let them do it at home. Like I said before, until there’s actually something to measure, no one cares about replication.
I’m saying that science does not apply to these other dimensions, or other such things as falsifiability and other such things. They are tools that don’t work there, so don’t even mention them. Just like you can’t expect F=mA to work in a alternate universe no matter how accurately you measure m, it doesn’t work there.
There is nothing that happens that does not have a reason behind it (even the tv shows you watch have meaning), people who are said to have delusions just don’t have the ability to convince others. It is also the ability to interpret, not just view.
There is one God, but many gods. One such demonic god, usually called Allah, probably did tell them to destroy the WTC.
Expressed in simple terms, ‘falsifiability’ means there is a way to check that what you believe in isn’t just a delusion or made up fantastical nonsense. Thank you for confirming in your own words that ‘falsifiability’ does not apply to the claim that you made about spiritual awareness (to which I referred in my previous post). It is admirably gracious of you to admit that there is no way to distinguish your beliefs and statements from delusions or made up fantastical nonsense. This may have a bearing on the credence attached to your posts here on the SDMB.
This is an interesting assertion. It follows from your own words that if I entertain the delusion that you, Kanicbird, are a satanic demon intent on disseminating made up rubbish, the problem is not that I am in error but that I lack sufficient wits to persuade others that I am right. I think this is worth noting for future reference.
You have not addressed the question I asked you. I asked you, ‘…how you are able to distinguish between the things you can see, detect or know about using your spiritual awareness and things that are delusions, dreams and fantasies entirely divorced from reality and real life’. I cited examples of things that some ‘spiritually aware’ people have done (fly planes into buildings, murder young women) only to underline the fact that this an important point. However, you have not addressed this point or answered the question I put to you.
And I say that science does work in these “other dimensions”, and that those dimensions are filled with strawberry jam. Can you give anyone any reason to favor your claim over mine ?
No, they are simply wrong. Reality is what it is, regardless of your opinions; otherwise delusional people could work miracles, and every insane asylum would be mass of conflicting realities.
And how can one tell one imaginary, invisible god from another ? Let me guess; “agrees with kanicbird” is the test for true divinity.
And Allah is just “God” in another language, anyway.
No, you’ve missed the point. Turning a staff into a snake is a trick. Certain types of snake can be paralysed by holding them in a certain way. Throw them down on the ground, and they “come to life.” So Aaron demonstrated this trick. Pharaoh laughed at him and called his priests who knew the same trick. No paranormal feats in that. The miraculous part was when Aaron’s snake ate the other snakes.
[QUOTE]
[someone grounded in the world can’t understand how it is possible and their brain can’t accept it. /QUOTE]
Then what’s the point? If no one can understand it, and it doesn’t affect the ‘material’ world (that can be measured) except by you, and only you know if it’s you having some random feeling or thought instead of a spirit/demon visitation…what’s the point?
You say it CAN affect us…only we could never know because we…what? looked for it…but then no you can’t…but if you DON’T look for it…you’re turning closed mind and blind eye!
How is that miraculous? Now Aaron just has a fat snake/staff. A chubby, as it were. Can’t possibly fit that snake in his pocket, if you know what I mean. I dunno about his rod, but his staff is uncomfortable from overeating, wot?
Regardless of whether the cause of supernatural events is empirically verifiable or not, the results very much are. If you claim to be able to predict the future or find hidden water, then we can test your ability to actually predict the future and find hidden water using the scientific method.
You can, of course, make any number of excuses as to why some paranormal phenomenon didn’t show up this time, but at some point the hypothesis that it works at all has to collapse under conflicting evidence. Just like someone claiming to be a brilliant piano player who, upon being asked, can’t identify the location of c’ on the keyboard, and is never able to actually play any given piece, generally won’t be believed.
You seem to be confused as to the scope and abilities of science. It’s a very general approach, basically just a way of looking for things systematically – actually, I’d go as far as saying that for something to be accessible to science, it only needs to exist and influence some part of observable reality. It’s not like science employs some kind of special detector, and thus can only talk about things registered by this detector – or maybe you could say that the whole universe is its detector: anything within it, and anything affecting it, automatically is in science’s domain. To say that ‘science does not apply’ to something is essentially to say that that something isn’t there, either in the sense of not existing or in the sense of not interacting with anything that in turn interacts with us. In both cases, it’s of no consequence to anybody at all.
And, of course, you alone know who that ‘one God’ is. What’s that, a true godsman fallacy?
But all of those things can be replicated. The pianist can be studied when he doesn’t know he’s being watched. A student can be given a test which he thinks is merely a piece of homework. Your fellow student can be asked to do maths at many different times.
The point of replicability isn’t that a person has to be able to do what they claim at any time, at any place, on the spur of the moment or with planning. The point is to try and eliminate one-time factors that allow success or failure, whilst keeping the consistent factors - to figure out to what extent the results are due to consistent factors or non-consistent factors. Human freedom may be a problem from replication at times, but it’s not the dealbreaker you’re making it out to be; to consider a problem without also considering the ways a problem can be dealt with is itself rather intellectually sloppy. There’s a problem, darn, forget about replication entirely.
Out of interest, is the reverse true? If someone focuses on the spiritual too much, the less they can sense of the physical?