You’re saying Dali’s surrealist works existed somewhere before he painted them? Where?
You think it doesn’t? How are we even talking about it?
I’ll have to look at that later. I’m on my phone. In the meantime, tell me-- can you see these physically stored memories? Could you read them after autopsy?
Physics nitpick: there are many things that are not matter. Photons, for example. Maybe the term “non-physical” better fits your intent.
Possiibilities would include:
Someone knocking then quickly leaving for some reason (“Ding Dong Ditch,” siddenly realization that they had the wrong house, then fled and hid in embarrassment).
It was noise from somehwere else (noise upstairs, knocking in pipes) that you intepreted as coming from the door. This is something that happens frequently. Thje brain is not pefect at percing the direction of sound, and suggestion can be powerful. Being that close to a door can make your brain interpret it as the source of a knocking noise, even though it may actually be coming from inside a wall or a ceiling.
Something fell in the garge.
An animal got into the garage.
You aren’t trying to allege it was a ghost, but all of the above explanations are far more likely than a ghost.
If I had to guess with a gun to my head, I go go with the misinterpreted source of sound hypothesis.
If your concept of a theory is anything other than just a theory you are wasting your time explaining it to me. A theory will always be just a theory. That is something that has not been experience by anyone. No one has actually experienced consciousness as a physical event.
Many of your assumptions of what I thought and about the cat are wrong. I was expecting to go to the hospital in the morning, the calling of my name woke me up and I heard the other part while I was awake, the cat was young and in good health, etc., etc. I give you an “F” on your explanation. As I said before anyone can come up with an alternate explanation of any event. It’s a no-brainer.
The materials he made them with existed, yes. The pigments, the canvas. You disagree?
I think Rivendell doesn’t exist? Of course not.
We are talking about something that is imaginary. I’m failing to see your point here, unless you’re trying to say that ghosts are imaginary, in which case I agree.
They are destroyed when the brain dies, so no.
But how do we define when something exists? If I say, let’s talk about “xkljdfsljflsjfk,” a word I just made up…does that exist? Does it exist as a place or an object or just as random letters? If I assign it properties of a place where mountain lions hang out, does it suddenly exist more as a place than as anything else?
Woah. Heavy.
Non-physical. Ok. Anything that is neither matter nor energy.
Does Jesus count as a deceased person or does the whole “riose again on the third day” disqualify him?
I have never told anyone (not even my wife) and if this wasn’t an anonymous internet chat board i woldn’t mention it. About 20 years ago I had a near fatal car accident. This changed my perspective on life, I became very “live for now” hedonistic and after a few eyars it caught up to me in the form of a pretty severe existential crisis. I found myself in a church praying (not something I was in the habit of doing) and I had a vision of Jesus.
It was like a turbo therapy session, he told me (or rather conveyed the impression) that my low sense of self esteem combined with the near fatal accident led me to think that my life was meaningless. He said he loved me and that his love was greater than any sin I have commited. I asked him how he could love someone who had lived a life as superficial and hedonistic as mine and he told me that I underestimated his love, that I underestimated love generally. There was some mention about my pride, my vanity, my confidence in my superiority (or more accurately in other’s inferiority). We were on a roll, then someone tapped me on the shoulder and told me that my loud gibberish was disturbing people and I never got to see jesus again.
It changed my life, I developed a better opinion of myself as a person (up until them my entire identity was tied up int the fact that i was smarter, richer and better looking than most people, I suddenly felt that I had a life worth living even if i was dumb, poor and ugly). I haven’t gone to church (except for weddings and stuff) or even prayed in at least 10 years but that one experience has made me a deist for life.
Now without saying that it was all in my head, how the heck do you debunk something like that? Why would you want to?
We think we understand everything, that everything can be explained by the stuff we already understand (namely the principles of science as we understand them today). The idea that we can explain everything through the science we have today is the equivalent of raindancing. If it works then it proves that scince can explain everything and if it doesn’t then it means that there is some peice of science that we haven’t discovereed yet (but its right around the corner) that will explain everything. That is not to discount the value of science but science does not claim to understand everything today. Physicists (particularly astrophysicists and particular physicists) eventually get to the point where it gets harder and harder to explain things through science, where God becomes as credible an explanation for things as science.
I was right. You have no idea what a theory is. Using terms you don’t understand is a bad idea.
That’s what I said. You said all of these: you’d been at the hospital all day, you were exhausted, you were already thinking about going back.
While you were barely awake after a period of stress and three hours of apparently poor sleep. I didn’t comment your statement that you “set up” [sic] after hearing the voice, which made it sound like you were instantly 100% awake and sat bolt upright- which only happens in the movies.
Still a coincidence.
I expected you would. But that doesn’t make me wrong.
The question is which explanation is more likely: did your dead father-in-law send you a pointless message about a phone call you were about to get anyway, or did you have a dream related to something you’d been thinking about and dealing with all day? I know what gets my vote.
Okay Dio.
Long ago, when my child was little, we had a toy vacuum. It made a noise when pushed.
At 9 one night, it started making that noise. it wasn’t moving. i came by it and thinking some door slamming had set it off, jumped up and down near it and nothing.
Next night around 9, same thing.
As for ghost definition, I don’t believe in ‘ghosts’, just evil spirits.
Science is a method, it’s not an “explanation” in itself, it’s a method for discovering explanations, and no, a magic, invisble wizard in the sky is never a better explanation than a natural one. All the God hypothesis does is create something which requires even more explanation than the thing you’re trying to explain.
Can you give an example of something for which you think a sky god is a more credible explanation than a natural explanation?
What other explanation is needed?
You’re impuning people’s motives here and I object to it. It’s not like I, or Diogenes the Cynic, or Mr. Excellent, is going to your house and telling you your life is meaningless, or beating up a priest, or breaking up gospel breakfasts or anything like that. It’s a discussion. Diogenes the Cynic said he wanted to debunk ghost stories. A few people have offered stories about purported supernatural experiences. Everybody is aware of what they are doing.
Aside from your sarcasm and distorted claims that it’s right around the corner, that’s pretty much how science works as a process. You investigate things and try to understand them. If they are explainable by what we already know, then we have at least one possible explanation. If it’s not explainable based on what we know or contradicts what we think, then we research it and try to discover what the contradiction is and resolve it by revising our understanding. Some things are not explainable now, but there’s reason to think they will be in the future.
You’re treating this like a self-reinforcing set of beliefs, but it isn’t. It’s a methodology that is intended to promote discovery. And it’s worked pretty well for us so far. It’s given us electricity, cures for malaria, the internet, and space exploration for a start.
This is a false statement based on blithe generalitities. Topics like quantum physics are certainly complicated but they don’t cause a breakdown in reasoning or the scientific method and they don’t provide support for gods any more than the everyday miracles (thunder, fire, sunsets, little baby ducks, Sweatin’ to the Oldies vol. 1, 2, and 4) that people used to used more often to the same effect. In other words it’s a god of the gaps explanation.
I’d have to know more about the mechanics of the toy. Was it one of those “popcorn” toys, or was it something else.
One likely explanation is that you heard something else and mistook it for the toy. Did you actually get close enough to see and hear it going at the same time, or did it stop before you got to it? Were you ever able to pick it up and verify that it was operating, or did you just hear the noise, go investigate and find it silent?
Of course, but those materials aren’t a painting. I can’t go mine a bunch granite and copper and lead sand and call it the Empire State Building. Where did the painting come from? The work of art.
I’ve said all I’m going to say about ghosts. They are completely uninteresting to me outside of metaphor.
So what proof do we have of them? Not evidence, proof-- since you’re being so strictly empirical. Show me.
What about concepts? “Running.” You know exactly what I mean when I say it. You can describe it. It’s a noun. You can’t deny its existence. But where is the physical essence of running located?
I’ll bite. Here’s another supernatural story (which left me pleasantly baffled). My family brought our beagle ‘Jake’ up to the vacation house in Lake George, NY. The night before we were to be returning home, Jake disappears. Just split the whole scene into the wilderness.
We were beside ourselves with grief and we spent the next day aggressively searching for him. Our search area spread out for miles, dozens of people were questioned, the tiniest leads eventually exhausted. Sadly, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we had to leave.
Back in Jersey we still kept up the search via telephone to our NY neighbors from time to time. This went on for about three weeks. Nobody had seen him so everyone eventually figured Jake had perished, EXCEPT for my brother. He decides to call a psychic who lived in our area who he found in the phone book. Once the connection was made he put her on speaker phone so we both could hear.
“Is it a little dog?” (So far unimpressed… )
“Yes”
“Does he have spots of brown, with a few dashes of white?” (AGAIN, unimpressed)
“Yes”
“Where did you last see him?”
“Lake George, NY. We have a summer house there.”
“Ok. I know where he is. Not the actual address, mind you, but I see Jake.” (This is where me and my brother’s faces took on an eerie resemblance to the Trololo cat)
“You see him? Where is he?”
“Drive down the road to your summer house. I see a large white building with a spire on the right and a corn field on the left.” (This freaked us right the fuck out as it was accurate to an extent except for the fact that the old white Presbyterian church was on the left and the field was on the right.)
“Yeah? How far do we drive?”
“Past the church, at least. On your left there’s a road that cuts through the corn field. It’s a dirt road. Take this road to the end. At the end is a small house with an elderly man living alone. He’s blind but took Jake in. Go to this house and that’s where you’ll find Jake.”
Against our parents wishes me and my brother left the very minute we got off the phone and headed back to upstate NY. We drove past the church and made a turn onto the FIRST road into the cornfield (it was paved). We followed it and found it looped back onto the main thoroughfare.
So we went farther and made a turn into the field onto an old road covered with loose rock. At the end we parked in a dusty driveway and saw Jake on a long leash, attached to the house, lying in the sun. He had his collar on with our tags intact.
My brother knocked on the door several times but no one answered. We waited for a good two hours, but whoever owned the house wasn’t home. So we left a note on the front door and went home. With Jake.
Actually, since it’s intangible, I don’t care if it’s angry.
Reproducible evidence is the key phrase. There is all this anecdotal stuff that is being dissed, stuff that Fort would call ‘Damned Data’. Your theory, (which I presume to be that consciousness is a meta phenomenon of a very complex system) is probably right, and people who believe in spooks and souls are probably wrong.
BUT
To be utterly dismissive of counter evidence and vaccinate your theory against contrary evidence, especially weak evidence, is poor science. Further, a combative and dismissive attitude serves only to solidify the opinions of the people you’re trying to persuade.
Yes they are. They are the arrangement of pigments on a canvas.
You can if you arrange it right. I’m really not following you here.
It didn’t come from anything. It was constructed and arranged from existing materials.
You really want a super long post about the neurology of the brain?
“Running” is word used to refernce an observed physical act. Nothing mysterious about that.
“Concepts” are just linguistic tools used to describe observable phenomena. They exist only as words but they serve as tools to access memories and observations.
Weather isn’t “reproducible”, but it hasn’t stopped people classing its study as a science.
A psychic who lives in your area? It doesn’t sound like your search was very secret. Though, it would seem improbable that the psychic would randomly decide to investigate your dog for you. Although…
Does your brother often randomly call psychics out of the phone book, and put them on speaker for everyone to listen to? What prompted it this time? Are you well-known in your family for being a skeptic? Does your brother like messing with you?
My brother called the psychic who lived in our area from the phone book. He picked her completely at random as we seemed to have exhausted all other avenues. It really was an act of sheer desperation. I asked him to put her on speaker so we both could speak to her at the same time. Me and my brother pull pranks on each other regularly, but he was deadly serious about this particular phone call. Or he appeared to be at the time.