Well, that’s not quite true. There is room in physics for new ideas where objectively observable phenomena can be documented but not explained by the old rules. That’s where Einstein slipped in. When Marcus is objectively observed and documented, then there is in fact room in physics for him, even if he can’t be explained by what we know now. Can he be? I think we all know the answer to that.
Absolutely true. It remains, however, an opinion, not a “fact” as asserted.
(And while I do not expect to see any discoveries demonstrating that ghosts are real, “everything we know of the laws of physics” is probably still open to a great deal of future correction and enhancement.)
The fact is, we don’t have an objectively observable and documentable phenomenon here, do we? Without that, the laws of physics are not even in question. If Big Bird had to give up keeping Snuffalupagus a secret for the good of humanity, why doesn’t meenie7? She could change the freakin’ WORLD in an enormous way if only she’d document Marcus. Seems awfully selfish to withhold that sort of enlightenment from the world, doesn’t it?
Wow, that is eerily ordinary—I just felt the hairs on the back of my neck lie down.
You may want to apply your abilities toward the **Vinyl **(“The Amazing”) Turnip’s Hypernormal Challenge. Entry fee is $1 million, there is no prize, and so far in the history of the Challenge, every applicant has won.
Yes, he can, because this is THE BIG ONE. It’s ghosts. It’s a person with no physical presence, but with memory, a history, the ability to do things that are outside your consciousness (like go to movies, but apparently not look at the face of a rolled dice).
You believe in GHOSTS (multiple ghosts according to that 2004 post). You’re not a skeptic. Period.
You’re not a skeptic until you get Marcus to tell you what’s on the dice in the other room with an impartial observer, and he explains to you why he couldn’t tell you what’s on the dice. And why he would want to hurt your reputation by lying to you or not telling you.
You’re not a skeptic until you realize that you’ve constructed an imaginary friend who was not in love with your descendant, but rather that that is just an elaborate tale that you’ve made up to make him seem more real.
I’m fine if you want to say, “I’ve been hurt by a lot of people in my life and I’m comforted by my thoughts that I have an imaginary friend, like a guardian angel, who will never leave me.”
But, stop calling him a ghost from 1820 who was in love with one of your descendants, and who goes to see movies, and is kind of amused by the idea of computers.
beautiful!
Am I the only one who really WISHES it was true?
How awesome would it be to have a ghost friend? I’m jealous.
You mean, besides meenie? We can only hope so.
Yes, it would be awesome. It would be awesome to have a ghost friend, and to be able to fly, and turn invisible, and have a pony.
It’s just that most of us outgrow such notions by the age of 8.
Me, you, and Freudian Slit. Marcus should visit us.
Ancestor. Why do people so often mix those up? (I do it too.)
I don’t think olive was looking for quite so serious a response.
Lighten up.
I thought Meenie said Marcus was okay with doing a test, but it wouldn’t happen until her friend comes back from CA. I don’t have time to wade through all of this thread and the other one, but I don’t remember her giving any “It doesn’t work that way” excuses. The impediment was her not wanting to bring RL people in on it, other than the one who already knows.
I was thinking more along the lines of The Voice of God in Real Genius. 
You scarcely addressed my comment and I completely disagree.
Why is that an “odd view of the world?” Isn’t that the whole POINT of the SDMB? Y’know, the “fighting ignorance” shit? Would that not make YOUR point of view the one at odds with the mission of this board?
I know being a mod can wear on the strongest person and that too much time spent here can warp anybody’s perception. We go back many years, and most of that time I, at least, thought we got along pretty well so I will presume to speak as a friend: If your point of view has diverged so very much from the mission of this board, might it not be a good time to take a little vacation?
There’s a point to being a skeptic, and learning how to be a good one. You can’t just pick what you’re skeptical about. I don’t understand how someone can claim to see and feel an inordinate amount of ghosts, but then argue the validity of them to what her friends see, or what she sees on TV.
Anyway, the point is to learn how to discern the truth. Not something that feels like truth, but the truth even when it blows. Being a skeptic means that everything you encounter has to fit in with all of the substantiated evidence we hold. And unfortunately for ghosts, there’s an insurmountable amount of evidence against. Not only directly, as in scientists testing psychics and waving around myriad detectors in “haunted houses”, but also indirectly as in everything we know, and put into practice about the laws of physics says it’s practically impossible.
Yes, I understand that science changes its own rules over time on a regular basis, but they’re more of a refining than a complete paradigm shift, as finding out there’s such thing as a “spectral realm” would be. If it exists, how can you reconcile it with our physics as they stand now? How are these ghosts, who aren’t detectable by any sort of instruments we have, and who can pass through any sort of matter, able to interact with people and see our light and watch our movies? How are they able to cling to the earth which is hurtling around the sun as the sun is hurtling through the milky way, and as the milky way is – well, you get the idea. It opens up a whole can of worms.
Also, if there is a spectral realm where these ghosts reside, what is this plane of existence like? Does it mean there is a God, after all? And who is he? Also, why don’t we see alien ghosts from other worlds? Blah blah blah…
In my experience with people I’ve encountered with people who assertively believe this stuff (my youngest sister is one of them), they are of a certain personality. They are heavily credulous, lack even the most basics of healthy skepticism, no good scientific knowledge, are attention grabbing, and being able to “see” these things makes them feel special.
In the end, not being a skeptic deprives you of living a life that is able to take in the true mysteries of the universe, to recognize what those are, appreciate them, and see our place in the cosmos. It keeps you gullible and open to cons. It may be fun to believe in this stuff, but it’s a deluded game of pretend, a distraction at the least and damaging to your ability to discern what’s real and what’s not, at the worst.
Seems I was a little off; hajario says it was all fiction but MWC didn’t disagree, except in regards to the Jehovah’s Witnesses one.
You are Number 6.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I’m not nearly that hot.
How many Sixes are there?!
ETA: Probably NSFW? 