Only if you assume (naively, I think) that ghosts HAVE TO be the spirits of the dead. If you try to look at the evidence objectively --- "What is this phenomenon that so many people experience?" --- then it may (or may not) turn out to be a paradigm buster. Who knows?
Umm.
If you do approach it that way, you get mundane, natural answers, not anything paranormal. That's the problem. That's why what you're saying is utterly absurd.
if it is naive to think that a ghost is a dead human, then a ghost is not a ghost, now you are killing the definition of the word 'ghost'.
Maybe it needs to die.
Example: Person A sees a shadowy figure in the corner of the room. Said figure is not, however a person or shadow. Figure moves with purpose, vanishes. Possible explanations? Is it only (A) the spirit of a dead human being, or (B) delusion / misperception? Is the middle truly excluded, or do we simply lack the imagination or the willingness to investigate thoroughly because we have a bias against (A)?
Similar Example: Person B sees an unidentified object in the sky. No known aircraft can make the maneuvers, blah blah blah. Possible explanations? Is it only (A) extraterrestrial spacecraft, or (B) delusion / misperception? Is the middle truly excluded, and why? At least here I can come up with some other possibilities: an unknown aircraft, maybe something experimental; an atmospheric phenomenon of some kind, either unknown to the viewer, or perhaps unknown in general; or something not considered? Why not study it to find out, since so many people have had the experience?
That's my point. Maybe it turns out to be some new perceptual feature of the human brain. Maybe it turns out to be some energy phenomenon that is truly a paradigm-shifter. You won't know if you a priori refuse to look because it won't fit in your box. And very few of these phenomena have been thoroughly and rigorously and objectively investigated because of the biases of the prevalent paradigm. If you say they have been, you need to do some more research. And no, I'm not talking about trash like "Ghost Hunters."
That's a collective "you," not you specifically, no offense intended. Maybe I should say "we."
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Similar Example: Person B sees an unidentified object in the sky. No known aircraft can make the maneuvers, blah blah blah. Possible explanations? Is it only (A) extraterrestrial spacecraft, or (B) delusion / misperception? Is the middle truly excluded, and why? At least here I can come up with some other possibilities: an unknown aircraft, maybe something experimental; an atmospheric phenomenon of some kind, either unknown to the viewer, or perhaps unknown in general; or something not considered? Why not study it to find out, since so many people have had the experience?
Am I the only one who wants to call up the government saying he wants to call up the government saying he saw a UFO before going into how he can't tell the difference between herons, cranes, and storks, making identification difficult?
Only if you assume (naively, I think) that ghosts HAVE TO be the spirits of the dead. If you try to look at the evidence objectively --- "What is this phenomenon that so many people experience?" --- then it may (or may not) turn out to be a paradigm buster. Who knows?
Umm.
If you do approach it that way, you get mundane, natural answers, not anything paranormal. That's the problem. That's why what you're saying is utterly absurd.
if it is naive to think that a ghost is a dead human, then a ghost is not a ghost, now you are killing the definition of the word 'ghost'.
Maybe it needs to die.
Example: Person A sees a shadowy figure in the corner of the room. Said figure is not, however a person or shadow. Figure moves with purpose, vanishes. Possible explanations? Is it only (A) the spirit of a dead human being, or (B) delusion / misperception? Is the middle truly excluded, or do we simply lack the imagination or the willingness to investigate thoroughly because we have a bias against (A)?
Similar Example: Person B sees an unidentified object in the sky. No known aircraft can make the maneuvers, blah blah blah. Possible explanations? Is it only (A) extraterrestrial spacecraft, or (B) delusion / misperception? Is the middle truly excluded, and why? At least here I can come up with some other possibilities: an unknown aircraft, maybe something experimental; an atmospheric phenomenon of some kind, either unknown to the viewer, or perhaps unknown in general; or something not considered? Why not study it to find out, since so many people have had the experience?
That's my point. Maybe it turns out to be some new perceptual feature of the human brain. Maybe it turns out to be some energy phenomenon that is truly a paradigm-shifter. You won't know if you a priori refuse to look because it won't fit in your box. And very few of these phenomena have been thoroughly and rigorously and objectively investigated because of the biases of the prevalent paradigm. If you say they have been, you need to do some more research. And no, I'm not talking about trash like "Ghost Hunters."
That's a collective "you," not you specifically, no offense intended. Maybe I should say "we."
right, but still you cant deny that ghost means a dead human. anyways, yeah sure that shadowy thing could be a ghost, but it probably isn't, i think the simpler answer is always best, because its usually the right one. but hey, sure i guess i have to keep my mind open to the possibility.
quote:
I myself, after years of pondering such things, reading about it and talking about it to people, I do believe that we're surrounded by millions of spiritual creatures and some day we may know more about it. I would say the great majority of Jews do not accept this. They have an illusion that Judaism is a rationalist religion. But being completely religious and rational don't go together."
That's a quote from Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jewish Nobel Prize Winner in Literature.
He's right. And we all intuitively know it, and are in collective denial.
Right now you and I are completely surrounded by swarms of entities.
Pretty scary idea, huh? I was only half (well, maybe a third) serious. I sure feel like I'm being swarmed sometimes. Like the last few wasted hours of my life. Anyway, it was an interesting ride. You skeptics are tough.
I wonder how Singer arrived at this conclusion. And if he really believed it, how he could fall asleep at night.
Ghost314 on
Life is a highway -- I want to ride it -- and comment on it ironically -- all night long.
I just remembered: there was a movie about this very idea. "From Beyond" with Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. It was stupid, gross, and oddly erotic. Check it out if you want to see the quote from Singer realized in sci fi form. Supposedly based on a Lovecraft story.
Ghost314 on
Life is a highway -- I want to ride it -- and comment on it ironically -- all night long.
I just remembered: there was a movie about this very idea. "From Beyond" with Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. It was stupid, gross, and oddly erotic. Check it out if you want to see the quote from Singer realized in sci fi form. Supposedly based on a Lovecraft story.
It's based on a very small part of a Lovecraft story, most of the rest was just created for the movie. I can't recall what Lovecraft story though.
Well said. But I doubt most of those things were either complete fabrications or delusions. A better question would be "What, if anything, is the basis for this belief?" I think that's worthy of investigation. For ghosts or any of the others (Well, maybe not Lovecraftian horrors.)
Why not Lovecraftian horrors? Some of them are quite a bit more plausible than ghosts.
I mean, we know that the dark ocean depths contain all kinds of really, really freaky shit so it's not too implausible that we'll find some really, really freaky shit down there.
So anyways, does anyone actually watch Ghost Hunters, here? Some of the evidence they get is pretty good (ie- not EVP's and weird shadows).
My favourite is the "if there's a ghost here, make the K2 meter blip" or "make the light turn on and off" footage they get. If that footage is undoctored, and that's a big if, that's pretty amazing.
But with shows like that you have to put your trust in: a) The people involved to not be staging some of these things and b) the network which has to compress all that footage down to an hour show and not chop and change the order of the footage.
I've not seen Ghost Hunters for at least 2 seasons, but I thought it was pretty clearly stated that their entire purpose was to disprove ghost sightings. The show was shot in a very sensationalistic fashion, yes, but I don't think they ever said "there is a ghost here"; they collected unexplained data and allowed the clients to make up their own minds.
Heck, most of the time they never found anything other than dots and static. The cool thing about the show was just seeing some of the locations they went to, as some were definitely creepy as shit.
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All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
It always kind of cheeses my crackers when people trot out the old, "Oh yeah? Well, 100 years ago scientists said they were smart and they were really just dummy-heads!" thing.
Back near the turn of the (previous) century when physicists said that they pretty much understood the universe and that they didn't think a lot more science was left to do, they had fairly good reasons for saying it. Like another poster said, the only completely unexplained phenomena were pretty far removed from daily life. But whatever they said and whatever their reasoning, the important thing to consider is that they were not really Wrong about much. Other than the idea that electromagnetic radiation propagated through a luminiferous aether we still use 90% of the same models and equations that they used back then. Newtonian mechanics is wrong, according to Einstein's relativity, but it's close enough that relativistic corrections don't become significant until you start talking about things with masses or velocities that we don't see in day-to-day life. Yes, a great deal of very important work has been done and some of our understandings of the universe are fundamentally altered...but their math was largely accurate.
The suggestion that we could, at any point, discover something that completely obliterates our understanding of the universe is just absurd. Sure, they didn't know about gamma rays or x-rays back then because they're hard to detect. But they did know about microwaves, radio waves, visible light, infrared, and ultraviolet and they realized that these things were all manifestations of the same principles. Maxwell derived the electromagnetic wave equation in 1864 and his results, altered largely for new mathematical formulations, are still used today. Physics keeps discovering new things at the ends of the spectrum -- either the very, very small or the very, very large. Startling revelations about common objects and interactions are pretty much over. Even if they introduce a new fundamental force to account for dark energy or quantum gravity, it will be an interaction with a range of light years or of Angstroms.
Analogies with four-humour theories and the like really aren't valid because biology and medicine are studies of extremely complex, high-level interactions in highly variable systems. Germ theory and genetics are very important, but they're not a revelation about the laws of reality.
Ghosts and whatever other paranormal phenomenon you want to discuss are going to Have to fit into what we understand about reality. Barring alien powers weaving the illusion of a consistent, understandable world for us over the underlying chaos and mind-destroying complexity of the Real reality, we have a pretty firm grasp on how the universe works. Ghosts, whatever they may be if not delusions, can't violate conservation laws or thermodynamics any more than anything else can and nobody is going to convince me that there is some feature of physical law that we've just missed so far to explain low-energy photon generation by incorporeal, energy-neutral entities.
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
edited April 2009
Why'd you have to go and say everything I was saying, only better?:P
People never examine older scientific beliefs in the proper context. What was believed to be true WAS correct to them, FOR GOOD REASON. If you can't distance yourself from modern advances and be able to recognize how they came to their conclusions and why they could not come to the conclusions we now hold, then you can never truly appreciate new advances in science that occur these days.
So have we covered the "X-rays are the same as ghosts" thing yet?
About their discovery:
Röntgen was investigating cathode rays with a fluorescent screen painted with barium platinocyanide and a Crookes tube which he had wrapped in black cardboard so the visible light from the tube wouldn't interfere. He noticed a faint green glow from the screen, about 1 meter away. The invisible rays coming from the tube to make the screen glow were passing through the cardboard. He found they could also pass through books and papers on his desk. Röntgen threw himself into investigating these unknown rays systematically. Two months after his initial discovery, he published his paper.
He said "Something strange is happening. Because I'm a scientist, I will investigate this in a systematic manner. My conclusion is that this is some new kind of ray." These findings were reproducible by scientists in a predictable manner. Through more experiments, we learn more about x-rays and increase our understanding of the world. There was never a step where Röntgen whined to the world and said guys, you gotta BELIEVE.
Now let's look at ghosts: a bunch of people claim they saw a ghost, with a lot of easily faked evidence. The findings are not reproducible. There are no experiments you can run to show ectoplasm.
One man was able to come up with reproducible evidence for x-rays in a short amount of time. However an entire army of ghost "experts" fails to do the same for decades.
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Most of the people now alive, in fact most of the people who have ever lived, have believed in one or more of your A, B, and C. Granted, anecdotal evidence for the most part. But "anecdotal evidence" is too easy a whipping boy.
Really?
You're the one who keeps talking about stupid past scientists. You know why people ever believed in humors, the flat earth, impetus, all that stuff? Anecdotal evidence. It takes only the slightest application of the scientific method to disprove those. They weren't the product of the science of their time; they were what people thought before science became popular. Much like ghosts, really.
While some form of alien life may exist, if it does it's probably at a very low level of development. I think most people don't realize how incredible it is that there's life on earth, let alone intelligent life (or even life as intelligent as, say, a dog or a cat). So, if an alien does exist we're probably talking about something on the cellular level.
I like the Drake equation, though I think the part at the end where he and Sagan say "well, they'll eventually kill themselves" is overly pessimistic. It's scientifically specious... it's a bunch of conjectured variables to come up with a bullshit value, but the organizational idea behind it is goud enough for government work.
And I don't think I'll ever believe in UFOs/alien contact unless I directly experience it myself in a way I can't explain in any other way, including my own personal insanity. I mean, we can't even communicate all that well with chimps and for all intents and purposes they're identical to us on an evolutionary level. And yet somehow we're supposed to believe that aliens that evolved (somehow) on another planet/in another galaxy/whatever build ships and travel through the stars just like humans wish they could? I mean, hell, usually these "alien encounters" involve aliens that are functionally identical to humans - they communicate (in English, somehow), perform medical experiments, walk on two legs... I can't see how anybody with even a rudimentary grasp of biology or evolution could think of that as a plausible scenario.
Unscientifically, don't believe the Earth is the only haven for life. Amino acids and goo are just too easy to make in a lab with simple materials. We can't figure out what the real spark is to make something emerge, but I really believe that it's a matter of time.
So, they're out there... but I don't think they are hovering above us. They may even have radio communications (though I think it's kind of a big assumption that if someone out there is running a civilization, that they gotta be using radio). It's just that they may not "pointing" at us, or maybe we're still looking in the wrong place using the wrong instrument to receive. They may even have robots (why anyone thinks that their tech would follow the course of ours, I don't get...) and spaceships (which also begs the why do you think their tech follows the course of ours...). But, they may have never gotten to FTL, because there's really no such thing as FTL, or they have and they went the other direction. Maybe they're not curious about anyone else, or someone else got to them first and they're having a ball. Maybe they're intelligent but just not that smart. Maybe there really is a planet of sexy Cat People. Until we jut paydirt, it's masturbation.
The real hinderance in finding anything is that there's a lot of anthropomorphic assumptions people make when they are looking for aliens, especially intelligent ones, especially when it comes to determining how on earth we can ever observe them. And, the fun part is... the aliens could be making the same fuckin mistakes over on their planet.
Regarding people who say they've personally been buttfucked by an alien, well... I am skeptical. First, I am wondering why they think that an alien thinks that their ass is juicier than mine, because, MY milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. [tiny](that's right, it's better than yours)[/tiny] Maybe they went through a pocket of gas (e.g. Oracles at Delphi), maybe they saw some St. Elmo's Fire, maybe they had a vivid dream. There's too many explainations of what it could reasonably be that don't rely on extraterrestrial agency or egomania over "an alien decided I had a purty mouth."
As for ghosts and shit... see above.
I don't disbelieve that people believe. Well... sometimes I wonder. But, I assume people's feelings are genuine, if misguided (unless you're those "Ghost Hunter" assholes, in which case, you're predatory assholes trying to make a buck off of people who just want to tell their grandma they still love her). That doesn't mean I'm going to entertain their bullshit by playing along.
I do get deja vu and go through that thing where I was thinking about a song or show and suddenly that show/song comes on or I feel like I remember a room I'm walking into from a dream. I think part of my brain is just entertaining itself by fucking with the other parts. This sort of thing started after I got out of the service... go figure. It has increased in the past few years... as has my intake of mood-altering (prescribed) drugs. Go figure.
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
Regarding people who say they've personally been buttfucked by an alien, well... I am skeptical. First, I am wondering why they think that an alien thinks that their ass is juicier than mine, because, MY milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. [tiny](that's right, it's better than yours)[/tiny] Maybe they went through a pocket of gas (e.g. Oracles at Delphi), maybe they saw some St. Elmo's Fire, maybe they had a vivid dream. There's too many explainations of what it could reasonably be that don't rely on extraterrestrial agency or egomania over "an alien decided I had a purty mouth."
Also, one of the most interesting things that I've never seen a 'I want to belive'er able to mount a response to, why are abductions almost exclusively a north american phenomena?
Also, one of the most interesting things that I've never seen a 'I want to belive'er able to mount a response to, why are abductions almost exclusively a north american phenomena?
Actually, the Soviets reported them as well, as have Brits, with a large "upsurge" of them recently.
People have interpreted ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Mayan texts/carvings as featuring aliens, but I honestly wonder if it's a interpretation problem.
Also, one of the most interesting things that I've never seen a 'I want to belive'er able to mount a response to, why are abductions almost exclusively a north american phenomena?
Actually, the Soviets reported them as well, as have Brits, with a large "upsurge" of them recently.
People have interpreted ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Mayan texts/carvings as featuring aliens, but I honestly wonder if it's a interpretation problem.
Yes it is an interpretation problem. You could read the King James Bible and see aliens in it.
When I was little I was in my mother's bed and we were both asleep. I woke up and looked over at the bath across the hall and saw clear figures inside. As I screamed my mother woke up and screamed at the same time. Like the EXACT same time. She later said she had a nightmare about someone trying to kill us. Absolutely fucking strange experience. That was my only experience with anything that could be (potentially) paranormal. I also saw a brunette woman peak at me over the bar in the kitchen but I had like a 104 fever so its was likely a hallucination. I told my father about it and he said made some remark about how his mother (who I never got to meet) had black hair. I think that was just a hallucination though.
I personally think that there is something going on with ghosts sightings. Most of them are complete bullshit but some of them could be rooted in some sort of truth. It may not be anything like visions of dead people it may just be some strange earthly phenomena we are not yet familiar with.
Yes it is an interpretation problem. You could read the King James Bible and see aliens in it.
Not that that's very hard. The so-called "angels" aren't always described as winged humans, after all. I, myself, am firmly of the belief that the great flaming wheel type of angel was actually bronze-age men trying to cope with seeing a flying saucer.
Therefore, YHWH is Xenu. :P
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
Also, one of the most interesting things that I've never seen a 'I want to belive'er able to mount a response to, why are abductions almost exclusively a north american phenomena?
Actually, the Soviets reported them as well, as have Brits, with a large "upsurge" of them recently.
That's why I said 'almost.' It's probably not going to be easy to find a reliable source, but I'm pretty sure NA experiences most of the UFO shenanigans, with an oddly light smattering over the rest of the world.
Also, one of the most interesting things that I've never seen a 'I want to belive'er able to mount a response to, why are abductions almost exclusively a north american phenomena?
Actually, the Soviets reported them as well, as have Brits, with a large "upsurge" of them recently.
That's why I said 'almost.' It's probably not going to be easy to find a reliable source, but I'm pretty sure NA experiences most of the UFO shenanigans, with an oddly light smattering over the rest of the world.
Also, one of the most interesting things that I've never seen a 'I want to belive'er able to mount a response to, why are abductions almost exclusively a north american phenomena?
Actually, the Soviets reported them as well, as have Brits, with a large "upsurge" of them recently.
That's why I said 'almost.' It's probably not going to be easy to find a reliable source, but I'm pretty sure NA experiences most of the UFO shenanigans, with an oddly light smattering over the rest of the world.
Well, we also get the most tornadoes. While that sounds like non sequitir and I'll admit that completely talking out of my ass here, it wouldn't be surprising to me that weird atmospheric phenomina happen frequently in areas where a cold, artic air mass is constantly slamming into a warmer, sub-tropical/tropical air mass.
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
edited April 2009
If you check above, you note I was talking about abduction claims, and not just UFO sightings. Although the image of NA's unique weather phenomena sweeping out of the sky and 'probing' random people is a highly amusing one. Talk about a twister!
Sometimes the phenomenon is classified by the observer as a ghost, fairy, or elemental, and a different name is used. Briggs' "A Dictionary of Fairies" provides an extensive list of other names for the same phenomenon though the place they are observed (graveyard, bogs etc.) influences the naming considerably.
Another image regularly reported is that of Jesus Christ. Sightings of this type have been reported in such varied media as cloud photos[13],tortillas[2], trees[14], dental x-rays[15], cooking utensils[16], windows[17][18], rocks and stones[19][20], painted and plastered walls[21][22]. Again, some of these items have been offered for sale on internet auction sites[23][24][25][26][27][28], and a number have been bought by the Golden Palace casino[29][22][30]. When such images receive publicity, people frequently come considerable distances to see them, and to venerate them[31].
In the Muslim community, a frequently-reported religious perception is the image of the word "Allah" in Arabic on natural objects. Again, the discovery of such an object may attract considerable interest among believers who visit the object for the purpose of prayer or veneration. Examples of this phenomenon have been reported on fish[37][38][39][40], fruit and vegetables[41][41][42], plants and clouds[43], eggs[44], and on the markings on animals' coats[45].
It has been suggested by some Shia Muslims that the first name of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (Ali) can be seen on the Moon. Other Shia Muslims, however, reject this claim, or dismiss it as a coincidence.[46]
Pretty much every encounter with a ghost works in a similar way. People's beliefs color their perception of something.
Another image regularly reported is that of Jesus Christ. Sightings of this type have been reported in such varied media as cloud photos[13],tortillas[2], trees[14], dental x-rays[15], cooking utensils[16], windows[17][18], rocks and stones[19][20], painted and plastered walls[21][22]. Again, some of these items have been offered for sale on internet auction sites[23][24][25][26][27][28], and a number have been bought by the Golden Palace casino[29][22][30]. When such images receive publicity, people frequently come considerable distances to see them, and to venerate them[31].
In the Muslim community, a frequently-reported religious perception is the image of the word "Allah" in Arabic on natural objects. Again, the discovery of such an object may attract considerable interest among believers who visit the object for the purpose of prayer or veneration. Examples of this phenomenon have been reported on fish[37][38][39][40], fruit and vegetables[41][41][42], plants and clouds[43], eggs[44], and on the markings on animals' coats[45].
It has been suggested by some Shia Muslims that the first name of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (Ali) can be seen on the Moon. Other Shia Muslims, however, reject this claim, or dismiss it as a coincidence.[46]
Pretty much every encounter with a ghost works in a similar way. People's beliefs color their perception of something.
Posts
Maybe it needs to die.
Example: Person A sees a shadowy figure in the corner of the room. Said figure is not, however a person or shadow. Figure moves with purpose, vanishes. Possible explanations? Is it only (A) the spirit of a dead human being, or (B) delusion / misperception? Is the middle truly excluded, or do we simply lack the imagination or the willingness to investigate thoroughly because we have a bias against (A)?
Similar Example: Person B sees an unidentified object in the sky. No known aircraft can make the maneuvers, blah blah blah. Possible explanations? Is it only (A) extraterrestrial spacecraft, or (B) delusion / misperception? Is the middle truly excluded, and why? At least here I can come up with some other possibilities: an unknown aircraft, maybe something experimental; an atmospheric phenomenon of some kind, either unknown to the viewer, or perhaps unknown in general; or something not considered? Why not study it to find out, since so many people have had the experience?
That's my point. Maybe it turns out to be some new perceptual feature of the human brain. Maybe it turns out to be some energy phenomenon that is truly a paradigm-shifter. You won't know if you a priori refuse to look because it won't fit in your box. And very few of these phenomena have been thoroughly and rigorously and objectively investigated because of the biases of the prevalent paradigm. If you say they have been, you need to do some more research. And no, I'm not talking about trash like "Ghost Hunters."
That's a collective "you," not you specifically, no offense intended. Maybe I should say "we."
Am I the only one who wants to call up the government saying he wants to call up the government saying he saw a UFO before going into how he can't tell the difference between herons, cranes, and storks, making identification difficult?
Pretty scary idea, huh? I was only half (well, maybe a third) serious. I sure feel like I'm being swarmed sometimes. Like the last few wasted hours of my life. Anyway, it was an interesting ride. You skeptics are tough.
I wonder how Singer arrived at this conclusion. And if he really believed it, how he could fall asleep at night.
It's based on a very small part of a Lovecraft story, most of the rest was just created for the movie. I can't recall what Lovecraft story though.
I mean, we know that the dark ocean depths contain all kinds of really, really freaky shit so it's not too implausible that we'll find some really, really freaky shit down there.
My favourite is the "if there's a ghost here, make the K2 meter blip" or "make the light turn on and off" footage they get. If that footage is undoctored, and that's a big if, that's pretty amazing.
But with shows like that you have to put your trust in: a) The people involved to not be staging some of these things and b) the network which has to compress all that footage down to an hour show and not chop and change the order of the footage.
Heck, most of the time they never found anything other than dots and static. The cool thing about the show was just seeing some of the locations they went to, as some were definitely creepy as shit.
Too many plums.
Back near the turn of the (previous) century when physicists said that they pretty much understood the universe and that they didn't think a lot more science was left to do, they had fairly good reasons for saying it. Like another poster said, the only completely unexplained phenomena were pretty far removed from daily life. But whatever they said and whatever their reasoning, the important thing to consider is that they were not really Wrong about much. Other than the idea that electromagnetic radiation propagated through a luminiferous aether we still use 90% of the same models and equations that they used back then. Newtonian mechanics is wrong, according to Einstein's relativity, but it's close enough that relativistic corrections don't become significant until you start talking about things with masses or velocities that we don't see in day-to-day life. Yes, a great deal of very important work has been done and some of our understandings of the universe are fundamentally altered...but their math was largely accurate.
The suggestion that we could, at any point, discover something that completely obliterates our understanding of the universe is just absurd. Sure, they didn't know about gamma rays or x-rays back then because they're hard to detect. But they did know about microwaves, radio waves, visible light, infrared, and ultraviolet and they realized that these things were all manifestations of the same principles. Maxwell derived the electromagnetic wave equation in 1864 and his results, altered largely for new mathematical formulations, are still used today. Physics keeps discovering new things at the ends of the spectrum -- either the very, very small or the very, very large. Startling revelations about common objects and interactions are pretty much over. Even if they introduce a new fundamental force to account for dark energy or quantum gravity, it will be an interaction with a range of light years or of Angstroms.
Analogies with four-humour theories and the like really aren't valid because biology and medicine are studies of extremely complex, high-level interactions in highly variable systems. Germ theory and genetics are very important, but they're not a revelation about the laws of reality.
Ghosts and whatever other paranormal phenomenon you want to discuss are going to Have to fit into what we understand about reality. Barring alien powers weaving the illusion of a consistent, understandable world for us over the underlying chaos and mind-destroying complexity of the Real reality, we have a pretty firm grasp on how the universe works. Ghosts, whatever they may be if not delusions, can't violate conservation laws or thermodynamics any more than anything else can and nobody is going to convince me that there is some feature of physical law that we've just missed so far to explain low-energy photon generation by incorporeal, energy-neutral entities.
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this explains why all ghosts are evil.
It also explains why they all wear cowboy hats.
About their discovery:
He said "Something strange is happening. Because I'm a scientist, I will investigate this in a systematic manner. My conclusion is that this is some new kind of ray." These findings were reproducible by scientists in a predictable manner. Through more experiments, we learn more about x-rays and increase our understanding of the world. There was never a step where Röntgen whined to the world and said guys, you gotta BELIEVE.
Now let's look at ghosts: a bunch of people claim they saw a ghost, with a lot of easily faked evidence. The findings are not reproducible. There are no experiments you can run to show ectoplasm.
One man was able to come up with reproducible evidence for x-rays in a short amount of time. However an entire army of ghost "experts" fails to do the same for decades.
Really?
You're the one who keeps talking about stupid past scientists. You know why people ever believed in humors, the flat earth, impetus, all that stuff? Anecdotal evidence. It takes only the slightest application of the scientific method to disprove those. They weren't the product of the science of their time; they were what people thought before science became popular. Much like ghosts, really.
Unscientifically, don't believe the Earth is the only haven for life. Amino acids and goo are just too easy to make in a lab with simple materials. We can't figure out what the real spark is to make something emerge, but I really believe that it's a matter of time.
So, they're out there... but I don't think they are hovering above us. They may even have radio communications (though I think it's kind of a big assumption that if someone out there is running a civilization, that they gotta be using radio). It's just that they may not "pointing" at us, or maybe we're still looking in the wrong place using the wrong instrument to receive. They may even have robots (why anyone thinks that their tech would follow the course of ours, I don't get...) and spaceships (which also begs the why do you think their tech follows the course of ours...). But, they may have never gotten to FTL, because there's really no such thing as FTL, or they have and they went the other direction. Maybe they're not curious about anyone else, or someone else got to them first and they're having a ball. Maybe they're intelligent but just not that smart. Maybe there really is a planet of sexy Cat People. Until we jut paydirt, it's masturbation.
The real hinderance in finding anything is that there's a lot of anthropomorphic assumptions people make when they are looking for aliens, especially intelligent ones, especially when it comes to determining how on earth we can ever observe them. And, the fun part is... the aliens could be making the same fuckin mistakes over on their planet.
Regarding people who say they've personally been buttfucked by an alien, well... I am skeptical. First, I am wondering why they think that an alien thinks that their ass is juicier than mine, because, MY milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. [tiny](that's right, it's better than yours)[/tiny] Maybe they went through a pocket of gas (e.g. Oracles at Delphi), maybe they saw some St. Elmo's Fire, maybe they had a vivid dream. There's too many explainations of what it could reasonably be that don't rely on extraterrestrial agency or egomania over "an alien decided I had a purty mouth."
As for ghosts and shit... see above.
I don't disbelieve that people believe. Well... sometimes I wonder. But, I assume people's feelings are genuine, if misguided (unless you're those "Ghost Hunter" assholes, in which case, you're predatory assholes trying to make a buck off of people who just want to tell their grandma they still love her). That doesn't mean I'm going to entertain their bullshit by playing along.
I do get deja vu and go through that thing where I was thinking about a song or show and suddenly that show/song comes on or I feel like I remember a room I'm walking into from a dream. I think part of my brain is just entertaining itself by fucking with the other parts. This sort of thing started after I got out of the service... go figure. It has increased in the past few years... as has my intake of mood-altering (prescribed) drugs. Go figure.
People have interpreted ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Mayan texts/carvings as featuring aliens, but I honestly wonder if it's a interpretation problem.
Yes it is an interpretation problem. You could read the King James Bible and see aliens in it.
I personally think that there is something going on with ghosts sightings. Most of them are complete bullshit but some of them could be rooted in some sort of truth. It may not be anything like visions of dead people it may just be some strange earthly phenomena we are not yet familiar with.
Steam 3DS: 1160-9885-2554
Therefore, YHWH is Xenu. :P
http://www.johnemackinstitute.org/ejournal/article.asp?id=54
... for whatever it's worth.
Do people still claim will-o'-the-wisps are supernatural, do they?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Tulilautta3.jpg
Those things are freaky.
Throughout the ages, people have seen stupid shit in various shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptions_of_religious_imagery_in_natural_phenomena Pretty much every encounter with a ghost works in a similar way. People's beliefs color their perception of something.
And then there's stigmata.