A open but logical mind vs the supernatural... (after life, atheist, paranormal)
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As I've said before, I am an agnostic, almost atheist guy with a strong interest in Anthropology and science.
I also have an unhealthy interest in the supernatural, mostly stemming from my own brushes with the unknown while living in a "haunted" house. I've had an almost obsessive need to explore and try to understand Moderator cut: deleted happened to me and appears to be happening to millions of other people. Here's where I stand now...
Most people of atheistic bent would ignore and/or deny anything labeled as "supernatural" as impossible, but that perspective is too shallow and rigid to make my world view jibe with my experiences. It is just too simplistic to say all these people (me included) are just making stuff up or suffering from mental illness. Who knows how many millions of people have seen ghosts, UFOs, bigfoot, ect, ect?
Plenty are fakes or misidentifications but various aspects of supernatural phenomena are just too pervasive in the human experience to simply write off as craziness. Add that to the fact that it's been happening in recognizable format for at least as long as humans have been able to write it down and you have to stop and say: "something is going on here!"
I think the first religion(s) were created by people trying to explain what people saw/experienced not vice versa. For example: see someone who has died walking around the hut? It must mean we survive death as spirits! If there is an afterlife, there must be a reason for existing, and a god who made it. See a metallic object cruising around the sky that appears to be under intelligent control? It must be the gods, or today extraterrestrials paying a visit! The root cause of the experience can be totally different from our interpretation; seeing should not necessarily be believing. Humans have a long track record of making good initial observations but coming to bad conclusions, and an observation almost always sparks some conclusion which is either coo berated or refuted with additional observations. It's just how our minds work... Our conclusions about what we saw/experienced can easily be wrong.
Anyway, I can't help but come to a few strong feelings about the unexplained after several years of researching this stuff:
First: Something is causing all this. It's more than just human imagination at work. Often several different people view the same thing. Reports regularly come from sane people. Governments and scientists have opened and maintained investigations into various supernatural phenomenon. Moderator cut: deleted I
Second: whether you are talking about ghosts, bigfoot, UFOs or even fairies and mermaids from the past, (where sightings were reported with just as much sincerity as today's UFOs) it all seems to be related somehow, and is culturally related/interpreted.
I can't explain why or how, but after reading so many (reliable) accounts of different types of phenomena, they all seem to be joined by some invisible common thread.
Third: There is no real unambiguous physical evidence of things that should reportedly be physical events. We've never found a bigfoot body, a mermaid has never been caught in a fishing net, no one has ever levitated in front of a filmed live stage audience, and despite claims to the contrary, no UFO has ever crashed and been examined by qualified members of the scientific community.
Fourth: Whatever is going on it seems random and pointless, as if we were the target and are essentially being played with. Certain things happen purely to create terror or mischief. I can usually tell bona fide paranormal events because there is no rhyme or reason to them, and nothing is achieved by the event. Real paranormal events are not repeatable; if someone is reportedly being haunted or abducted by aliens, it is impossible to recreate, predict or otherwise replicate the experience to make it happen again (or seem to happen, if it was just a hallucination).
This brings me to a weird place, where something is happening that isn't happening. Given the fact that thing we perceive in our environment is actually a mentally created model of the environment, not the real thing... perhaps someone or something is messing with our brain models. Perhaps we just aren’t normally perceiving everything that is in the real environment?
Then again, maybe it's possible our minds are so imperfect that tens of millions of people can naturally see things that aren't real. Either way, it's time to take this investigation into the mind to ever hope to find answers….
you have to stop and say: "something is going on here!"
Perhaps we just aren’t normally perceiving everything that is in the real environment?
I have a master's degree in psychology. I'd suggest that you look into scientific books on the subject of sensation and perception.
Yes, something is going on here. It is very normal for us to experience weird things, but the evidence really looks like they are simply our minds misperceiving sensory input. Our minds are constantly trying to make sense of the impulses it gets from our body's sensory receptors and it uses the ideas it is familiar with (whether it be spirits or UFO's) to try to organize the sensory input into something we might recognize.
It really is not all that remarkable. The best way to learn about this is to perform a few little exercises that force your brain out of its comfort zone. For instance, stare at your face in the mirror without moving for several minutes. Eventually, you will reach a point in which your brain no longer recognizes that it is looking at a face. It is a freaky sensation because on the one hand you know that you are looking at your face, but it doesn't "feel" like you are and that throws you for a loop. Now, if you believed in devils or whatnot, you would most likely interpret that weird sensation as seeing the devil that is possessing you.
Or, take a familiar word like "cook" and repeat it out loud over and over again. Pretty soon it won't sound like a word anymore to you, and again you might get a little freaked out.
I could tell you that I am testing your memory and that I will read aloud a list of words to you and I want you to tell me as many words that you remember of the ones I read. I then read 15 words to you all having to do with sleep, but I never say the word "sleep". Nine times out of ten, you will tell me I said sleep even though I did not.
Again and again and again, our brains actually perform pretty awful when tested in extreme or unusual situations. After doing a few of these tests you'll understand how fragile our ability to perceive the world accurately and remember it is. Then, you'll see that there are opportunities to misperceive things all the time and that we are primed by our culture to interpret ambiguous sensations in certain ways. And it doesn't have to be sensory input from our 5 senses. The sensations might stem from our limbic system (which gives us emotions) and if we can't think of any good reason for feeling that emotion right now, our minds may make up one for us (i.e., a ghost just passed through us).
The experiences are real, no doubt; and it does not mean we are crazy. It just means we are human and have fallible human brains that don't always give us an accurate representation of reality. It is ok; our brains work well enough for us most of the time.
I also strongly recommend Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. It answers a lot of the questions you're asking.
One very important observation, though, is that you will never get any answers if you start out from your current starting point, which is to assume the reality of supernatural phenomena.
My biggest problem with most agnostic/atheistic claims come from their "one answer" mantra. If you can't show immediate reproducible verifiable proof it is phoney. A lot of so called mystical events are phoney, misinterpretations of reality. Some are deliberate, some are accidental. But most are phoney. Some, on the other hand, represent very real events, and as such pose areas of science we have not fully explored. It is only the scientific dilettante that will dismiss all human experience as woo simply because he doesn't know how to analyze it scientifically.
One other thing...........
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chango
...........despite claims to the contrary, no UFO has ever crashed and been examined by qualified members of the scientific community.
I graduated from Goddard High School in Roswell, New Mexico in 1966. Walter Haut was a good friend of the family. So was Robert Shirkey. Both told my parents (and me and my siblings) about the aliens. both men were there. Walter saw the bodies. Both men saw the craft. Walter handled debris from the wreckage. Both men were well respected in Roswell, both as retired air force officers and as local businessmen with Bob becoming a teacher on the Roswell campus of Eastern New Mexico University. Walter operated a art gallery on West Second street prior to his death. Both of them have affidavits that have been published and are easily found on line.
I've hunted on the Brazeal ranch, although I was never privileged to know Mark. But I know what stories he told his family. there is absolutely no doubt in any of their minds nor in my mind as to their veracity.
As to whether or not qualified members of the scientific community did examinations, I have no first or second hand knowledge. That will have to be uncovered later.......declassified would be a better word.
Have you ever heard of Susan Blackmore? She was a believer in astral projection and all sorts of other odd stuff. She dedicated her scientific career to proving her colleagues wrong that those supernatural things were real. Well, she studied and researched, and she did high quality research. And guess what, despite being a believer herself, she never could find any support that there was anything metaphysical going on. Eventually, her research convinced her to be a non-believer.
Here are her educational qualifications: BA Hons in Psychology and Physiology, University of Oxford, St Hilda’s College, 1973 MSc in Environmental Psychology, University of Surrey, 1974
Thesis entitled "The after-effects of stressful noise" PhD in Parapsychology, University of Surrey, 1980
Thesis entitled "Extrasensory Perception as a Cognitive Process"
Why is belief in a diety a prerequisite to a belief in the "supernatural"?
Is it not a strong possibility that, what we consider to be paranormal, is in fact something quite normal but not yet understood by science? Why is being sensitive any different from being an artist or a musician? My grandmother couldn't read music, never had a lesson but she was able to hear a piece of music then sit down at a piano and play it perfectly. Would that be considered "supernatural"?
Truth be told, I think this debate has been beaten to death. Just because something is not as yet explained doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I have a master's degree in psychology. I'd suggest that you look into scientific books on the subject of sensation and perception.
Yes, something is going on here. It is very normal for us to experience weird things, but the evidence really looks like they are simply our minds misperceiving sensory input. Our minds are constantly trying to make sense of the impulses it gets from our body's sensory receptors and it uses the ideas it is familiar with (whether it be spirits or UFO's) to try to organize the sensory input into something we might recognize.
It really is not all that remarkable. The best way to learn about this is to perform a few little exercises that force your brain out of its comfort zone. For instance, stare at your face in the mirror without moving for several minutes. Eventually, you will reach a point in which your brain no longer recognizes that it is looking at a face. It is a freaky sensation because on the one hand you know that you are looking at your face, but it doesn't "feel" like you are and that throws you for a loop. Now, if you believed in devils or whatnot, you would most likely interpret that weird sensation as seeing the devil that is possessing you.
Or, take a familiar word like "cook" and repeat it out loud over and over again. Pretty soon it won't sound like a word anymore to you, and again you might get a little freaked out.
I could tell you that I am testing your memory and that I will read aloud a list of words to you and I want you to tell me as many words that you remember of the ones I read. I then read 15 words to you all having to do with sleep, but I never say the word "sleep". Nine times out of ten, you will tell me I said sleep even though I did not.
Again and again and again, our brains actually perform pretty awful when tested in extreme or unusual situations. After doing a few of these tests you'll understand how fragile our ability to perceive the world accurately and remember it is. Then, you'll see that there are opportunities to misperceive things all the time and that we are primed by our culture to interpret ambiguous sensations in certain ways. And it doesn't have to be sensory input from our 5 senses. The sensations might stem from our limbic system (which gives us emotions) and if we can't think of any good reason for feeling that emotion right now, our minds may make up one for us (i.e., a ghost just passed through us).
The experiences are real, no doubt; and it does not mean we are crazy. It just means we are human and have fallible human brains that don't always give us an accurate representation of reality. It is ok; our brains work well enough for us most of the time.
If it's just are minds, why can they track UFOs on radar? And why are missile launch codes sometimes changed when UFOs appear? And without anyone touching them. When you have to consider the real evidence, somehow the mind thing just does not fill the bill.
Here's a list of some pretty good books. I have read most of these and can say they do deliver some very helpful information regarding spirits and the after life. There is one about earthbound spirits, meaning we see them as ghosts. I have also heard that the actual ghosts that we see are actually the residual energies that are left behind. Until the person lets go of the material life and realizes that they are spirit, that energy will remain on this earth plane.
I personaly have an experience with ghost ( we Muslims call them Gin .. we don't believe they are dead people ghosts .. Gin is a creature of fire that has a different properties from humans .. It can change forms and become visible sometimes ) ..
We were living in a hunted house for 3 years .. now everyone who lives there dosen't stay more than a month or two ... I was 6 years old .. back then I did't even know what ghost means yet I saw and hear a lot of weird activities .. all of my family have the same experience .
You could go on and say whatever you want to but I am sure of what I have been through .. When you saw papers and pens flying in front of your eyes and your brother witnessed the same thing at the same time then It can't be just an illusion or a mind trick .
Last edited by squall-lionheart; 04-26-2011 at 05:41 AM..
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