Horizon - What is Reality?

[naomi24]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...2011_What_Is_Reality/

If those who claim the so called 'paranormal' doesn't exist want food for thought, do please watch it - that is if you can bear to think outside your comfort zone.

[mibn2cweus]

Orange Sunshine, wasn't it?

[Theland]

Either that or Deep Purple.
Wow! Did I reallly do that?
Somebody took their clothes off!
Ah well! I suppose it seemed right at the time.

[naomi24]

Birdie, Your post demeans you. You misunderstood my message to LazyGun and therefore your criticism was grossly misplaced. You may have read the entire thread but it's patently clear in more ways than one that you haven't understood it.

Since I have no idea what 'ghosts' are, I have never asserted that they are 'unquestionably' real so your message to Ludwig is misleading. The whole point of this thread is to question the phenomena. Additionally, I'm not trying to shoe-horn anything - and I don't have 'beliefs'. I have experiences I can't explain, but that as a rational human being who dismisses the 'supernatural' I know must carry a logical explanation - and this is a genuine question albeit one that it seems you and one or two others would rather I hadn't asked. No one understands the science spoken of in that programme - absolutely no one - not you, nor anyone else - not even those who would like to turn this thread 'on its head' but in actual fact would necessarily be incapable. If your curiosity is so limited that, despite knowing no more than anyone else, you insist on irrationally clinging doggedly to the belief that you are right and that millions are deluded, mistaken, or just plain mad, there's little I can do about it other than to wonder at your naivety.

continued ....

[naomi24]

....continued

As for my debating techniques, if, in your opinion, they make me look unpleasant, there's little I can do about that either except to say that yours don't just make you look unpleasant - they are unpleasant. Your attitude doesn't surprise me though because when your misguided assessment of the superiority of your own intellect fails to impress those of us who seek what could be an unpleasant truth for you, or when you're unsuccessful in browbeating others into meekly accepting that you know it all, you resort to personal insults. That, in reality has no part in any intelligent discussion and does nothing whatsoever to enhance your intellectual 'street cred'. Sadly we've seen a lot of it on here lately, but this isn't the first time its come from you - and I don't expect it will be the last. Perhaps in future if you self-appointed boffins think the answer to one of my questions is 'no', your obvious frustration and your incivility would be less apparent if you just said 'no'. That way you might be more successful in preserving the illusion of your preferred image.

[Theland]

Well flippin' eck and all that. There seems to be a breakdown in communications somewhere, or so I observe.
I wonder if like QM, if I hadnot bothered to observe, then the collapse of the communication function into an itchy particle would not have occurred?
So it is time to entwine your little fingers together, (in cyber space of course), and send smileys or wine to the opposite corner.
As for me, I'm still convinced that science is naked and ashamed when it comes to even trying to postulate a first cause, which is totally necessary to satisfy the longing for rationality and logic that is so pervasive here.
Or I could could be wrong.
It has been known before .................

[Theland]

To refer to a post or two back, the information currently held about apparently weird behaviour of particles at the itsy bitsy level, does not legitimise a belief in ghosts per se.
However, it doesn't rule them out either.
People, and Naomi is an example, have experiences in their past that are inexplicable even after going meticulously through the current edition of the Ghostbusters manual.
No squeaky floorboards, banging water pipes, no vino collapso, no high temperature or illness, etc etc etc.
The conclusion of such people is quite simply, "There must be a logical explanation for this, but at this moment in time, such an explanation eludes me."
I, on the other hand, do not believe that what is commonly called logic, is the only book in the library that can explain the phenomena.

[naomi24]

Theland, I wouldn't mind if these jumped up people were capable of discussing the subject in a civilised manner, but when they tell me incessantly and in all certainly that for various reasons, ranging from mistakes to delusions to insanity, I haven't experienced that which I know I have, it does become a bit wearing and I do tend to get a bit miffed. Where the hell do they get off?

[society]

By the way, the paranormal does exist. Unless you've experienced it, don't knock it.

[Theland]

Nice one Society.

Now then, I too can look down my nose intellectually at others, given my educational qualifications and illustrious career.
(I got a C.S.E. in Woodwork and spent 42 years as Factory Fodder).

But we all have off days, especially when the leccy bill arrives, so who knows whar stresses and strains lead people astray from their normally impeccable default position of extreme kindness and openness to polite conversation?
For example, if I can only find odd socks in my drawer, I am terrible company.

[naomi24]

Oh, I'm not stressed Theland, but my patience is stretched when I feel I must be speaking a foreign language - or of course, when I can't find two matching socks. And me a fashion icon too! ;o)

[mibn2cweus]

Disagreement should be viewed in no way other than based on a lack of mutual understanding. It is only on that basis that any potential for any real meeting of the minds exists. Where one cannot relate ones own to another’s mutual experience no meaningful resolution is possible.

Theland, In dismissing reason as the only proven avenue to truth you have already abandoned both. In declaring that reality is incomprehensible you have overlooked the very nature by which it can be comprehended. In both regards you have for your own part rendered any further communication as meaningless and have with regards to your own attempts succeeded only in proving your point, at least to those able to grasp the correlation between reason and reality . . . the rest are beyond all comprehension.

As for the socks, clean ones go in the drawer, dirty ones in the laundry . . . respect them and they’ll respect you. ;o)

Society, I personally know many people, including myself, who have had experiences for which they have not yet obtained a rational explanation. But for those who insist on an explanation where no other is as yet forthcoming, perhaps cognitive dissonance is to date the most logical explanation for the existence of the ‘paranormal’. If you haven’t consciously experienced it, perhaps you don't realise you’re under its spell.

http://www.skepdic.co...nitivedissonance.html

[society]

"If you haven’t consciously experienced it, perhaps you don't realise you’re under its spell. "

That ^^^ I do believe. I have had many experiences that why I said what I said.

[naomi24]

Society, I am not under a spell.

Mibs, I have no idea what you're talking about. It would be silly for anyone to 'insist' upon an explanation where there very clearly is none. As far as I can tell we have two options. Either there is an explanation or there is not, and as far as I can tell where the unexplained phenomena that is the underlying subject of this thread is concerned, logically the second option can be the only one that any rational person can possibly consider. It might not be the one that people who think they are rational want to consider, but rationally it is the only option.

[society]

Who is saying you are under a spell, Naomi?

Don't mind what some say, not everyone is open-minded enough to accept others views and opinions.

[naomi24]

Society, Oops! I think perhaps I misunderstood your previous post and there's another breakdown in communication here. Scrub that. :o)

[flobadob]

I watched a bit of the show the other day and the quote about walking through walls I took to mean that using quantum mechanics you can prove anything because a lot of it is hypothesis. Naomi, I have been on this site a few years and I think of you as a reasonable level headed free thinking lady. I don't like it when you get mad and stuff at people, I think it's beneath you.