I think I have decided that this is my favorite Pit Thread ever. Der Trihs, you’ve clinched it. Still, I have the unsettling feeling that something is missing…
While I find the possibility that meenie is talking to a ghost extremely unlikely, there are other shades of grey between ‘‘crazy’’ and ‘‘liar.’’ For example, she might know an actual person who believes he is a ghost. Or, as someone mentioned many pages ago, she may be the victim of an elaborate practical joke. But bearing these less likely possibilities in mind, Occam’s razor yields the inevitable conclusion that meenie is Adolf Hitler.
Nothing has to be asserted or proven not to exist, dumbshit. It’s the default presumption. If you want to even assert that something called a “ghost” is even possible,YOU have to define what you’re talking about. As far as science is concerned, “ghost” is just a nonsense word like “glurp” or “schnork.” Can you prove schnorks don’t exist. i guess they mist be “possible” then.
I can tell you that whatever does exist must have properties which obey the laws of physics, and the conception of “ghosts” as they are usually presented in popular fancy do not conform to physical laws, ergo they are physically impossible and may be safely dismissed out of hand as an explanatory hyothesis for anything, especially since thewy would explain nothing which can’t already be explained by purely natural causes.
Meenie does not have a ghost friend. I’m not being unreasonable for stating the fucking obvious.
You’ll often hear skeptics say, “There’s no scientific evidence of ghosts.” That’s not true – there’s MOUNTAINS of evidence. Entire cultures have been built around the existence of ghosts. Our current modern society is something of an anomaly, in that the rational person isn’t supposed to harbor a belief in ghosts. And yet, ghost stories abound. Just look at that original paranormal thread – LOTS of people have experienced ghost-like encounters, ranging from a vague, disquieting sensation to Sampiro’s way creepy Aunt Kitty story!
Only problem is…virtually all of this evidence is anecdotal. And somewhere along the line, the skeptics decided that anecdotal evidence doesn’t count. Instead, they demand hard, cold facts – observations that can be detected by instruments and repeated in a laboratory setting. Well…it’s a fair cop, I suppose. But just because no such facts have been observed yet doesn’t mean they never will. It’s very, very likely that we’re just looking in the wrong place.
All I can say for sure is – IF spirits, ghosts, and demons really exist, they are bound by the laws of science just like everything else in spacetime. And once those laws are understood, then ghosts and spirits will become as mundane as the malaria bacterium or the Higgs Boson. These manifestations will cease to be paranormal and just become, well, “normal”.
Oh, give it a rest already, Diogen! Have you bothered to read the responses so far? YOU are the one being dogpiled here. And just so we’re clear, it has nothing to do with your disbelief in ghosts, and everything to do with the fact that you’re acting like a total asshole.
For cripes’ sake, even begbert2 is urging you to knock it off. That fact alone should tell you something.
I’m only being piled by a handful of idiots. I’m not being an asshole and I’m not wrong. Now fuck off and go worship your pyramids or whatever you woo woos do.
Meh, we’re all being dogpiled out here. I have at leaast three against me, DtC has at least three against him, the same goes for you…
And all the anectotal evidence in favor of ghosts so far is crap. Period. The hole that DtC and Der Trish are digging themselves is that they’re making their own factual claim aboud science, which is provably false.
Oh, and also in DtC’s case, acting like a dick. When he starts mistaking me for a True Believer, you know that he’s abandoned rational thought and is merely venting rage from his primal hindbrain.
Is there anybody who would object to saying it was impossible for to fly by flapping my arms? What is the difference in “possibility” between that and ghosts?
Regardless of the technicality that science never proves anything absolutely, some things are still so astronomically implausible that they can be practically dismissed in the real world as impossible. It is technically possible that two people could have the same fingerprints, but it’s such an infinitessimally small possibility that it won’t do you any good in court.
It does. You are taking a view of “science” and proof which has only one “virtue” - it can be used to pretend that religion is intellectually respectable. It’s a viewpoint that people never actually use unless they are trying to excuse foolish beliefs.
As Diogenes just said, who would object to someone saying it’s impossible to fly by flapping your arms ? It’s only when religion or similar baseless beliefs become involved that these special rules get hauled out.
Seems like this type of experiment is eminently testable. Why not try it yourself? I hear the parking lot of the local mental hospital is a perfect place for a controlled environment. Make sure you film it and put it on YouTube, though.
Bravo, SherwoodAnderson. I agree with almost everything you said, but shrink your 10% considerably. And the alliance of internet dudes with hand on dick in pant will not soon be forgotten. They deserve a lot more blame around here than they get, and not just in this thread.
We understand a lot more, scientifically, about arms and the air they’re in than in spirits and the woo-woo spirualist theoretical plane they supposedly inhabit. So there’s a lot more scientific backing for positive assertions about arms’ non-aerodynamic nature. (With ghosts, science has only made negative assertions about specific claims.)
But, nonetheless, if somebody claimed to be able to fly by flapping their arms, I wouldn’t believe them but would be willing to let them try and demonstrate it. They’d only get one fail though. Per applicant. So in that way it’s exactly the same.
Unless somebody showed up claiming to have two people with exactly identical fingerprints - then you’d be a fool to announce they were lying or delusional without first testing them. And the equivalent claim regarding ghosts would be…
Of course, we can’t test anything persuasively over a web forum. So does that mean we leap to our preferred conclusion, on an assumption that’s being explicitly called directly into question? Well, you can, but don’t expect us to tell you that’s the scientific approach.
Ha ha ha! Dude, you twit, I’m always on your side in the religion threads!
And some of us live by the recognition that science is by nature a hard agnostic system. Not many of us - many people lack the education.
What would make meenie so special, if there are, in fact, such a thing as ghosts? Out of the millions of people that die every year, on top of all the animals that perish as well, why would only a handful stick around? If ‘Marcus’ has no trouble, whatsoever, experiencing our world, and interacting with meenie, what’s to stop thousands of others interacting with the rest of the population at large? It should be damn near common, shouldn’t it?
Pheh, if we’re going to entertain the idea that Marcus isn’t imaginary, then it’s quite easy to invent a fictional backstory that explains it adequetley enough.
I’m currently favoring “God kept Marcus around specifically to arrange for this scenario to dick with DtC.”
