Ghostly experiences (ooohh scarrrryyyy)

[Ponch]

You're basically saying that it is wrong to dismiss the existence of Santa Claus as long as there is a teeny-tiny bit of unexplained circumstance anywhere regarding the delivery of all the worlds presents.

Yes! This is exactly what I believe! You guys can argue religion all you want, but leave Santa out of this. 

[Ali]

You can't beat a good ghost story, but I'm firmly with the rationalists.

We don't need to come up with a conclusive explanation for the knocks you heard to demonstrate that it's unlikely to be a ghost. The supernatural explanation presupposes the existence of a soul and afterlife of sorts for which we have no other evidence. That makes it very unlikely.

It's much more likely someone was knocking as a joke, wood was creaking because of contraction, pipes were rattling, or you were just wrong.

Again: I was ALONE in the house, And I'm pretty sure to be capable to notice the difference between wood cracking, pipes rattling and knocking a door -twice-.

By the way, I consider myself a rationalist. In fact, to me the religious fanatics and the "hardcore skeptics" are the same: People who assume their beliefs about the "supernatural" are facts.

But if you consider the event dispassionately, you must see it's more likely that you were wrong in thinking you were alone. Or wrong about your ability to distinguish those sounds.

I'm don't mean to be patronising. I'm sure I could make the same mistake.

[Noctambulo]

From a socratic perspective my belief is the more rational. If you'd like to abandon socratic reasoning then feel free to do so but you'll end up in a funny place with unicorns and magic tricks.

Again, the dogmatic view... YOU are the only one who know the facts, right? 

PS: Is "Socrates" your real name? Because Socrates (the greek philosopher) DID NOT assume what he ignored was non existent. But keep trying

I am of the opinion (and theists especially dislike this) that the null position is one of disbelief. When considering any proposition I start out with the belief that it is not true. This protects me from wishful thinking and personal bias. If someone tells me they saw a ghost I say fine, show me some credible evidence. If they cannot do so then I dismiss their claim. This is of variable effect of course. The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence would have to be. I would not require evidence if someone told me they had eaten a nice sandwich.

I don't care if the atheists or the theists dislike this or not. And there is nothing that can "protect you from wishful thinking and personal bias", as you're already showing your own.

By the way: You must know that you're not in the "null position" because you believe that the "others" are wrong. That's a very strong belief.

If someone cannot present evidence it does not mean their claim false (absence of evidence) but I will work on the assumption that it is. Otherwise I'm just guessing.

I'm curious: What "credible evidence" could YOU show if what happened to me happens to you?

If you take the alternative approach and decide that you believe everything by default until shown otherwise then you automatically live in a world with astrology, tarot cards, witches, elves (which are totally real) and goblins which is, of course, absurd.

"of course, absurd"... Why?

The thing is that I am really in what you call "null position": I don't assume as a fact your belief. Maybe you're right, but I know that it would be intelectually dishonest (to me) to discard right away other explanations.

Finally, just because I can't explain your experience doesnt mean i ascribe it to the supernatural. I can't explain any number of Penn & Teller or Derren Brown tricks but I dont assume them to be supernatural just because I personally cannot explain them.

I'm just asking for a possible explanation. I'm not telling you to be theist or atheist.

[Stupot]

Yeah, I agree that you can't attribute something to a ghost just because you can't explain it.  My sister swears that she's been alone in the house and the kettle has turned itself on.  She also swears she has a ghost.  But there are so many possibilities.  Maybe she actually turned it on herself and forgot. Or maybe the cat knocked it. Or maybe the switch had been teetering between 'off' and 'on' all day, and finally clicked itself into the on position.

As for the the Knocking on the door, I doubt you did that yourself but there are still any number of possible rational explanations.  You just haven't thought of them yet.  Maybe it wasn't even the door, but a branch or something hitting the window - sound has a funny habit of appearing to come from the wrong direction.  Maybe it was something falling on the floor from another room.  It's a lot of maybes, I know.

Or maybe there actually is a person hiding in your house... in fact... he could be standing behind you right now..... RUN!!!!

[Bror_Jon]

The only belief i have about the supernatural is that it doesnt exist. This is not because I know either way but simply because there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

Remember: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

Quite.
But also remember that: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[Calin Leafshade]

From a socratic perspective my belief is the more rational. If you'd like to abandon socratic reasoning then feel free to do so but you'll end up in a funny place with unicorns and magic tricks.

Again, the dogmatic view... YOU are the only one who know the facts, right?  

PS: Is "Socrates" your real name? Because Socrates (the greek philosopher) DID NOT assume what he ignored was non existent. But keep trying

It's not that I am ignoring anything. I just dont believe that for which I have no evidence. Thats pretty much as simply as I can put it. There's nothing dogmatic about it.

I am of the opinion (and theists especially dislike this) that the null position is one of disbelief. When considering any proposition I start out with the belief that it is not true. This protects me from wishful thinking and personal bias. If someone tells me they saw a ghost I say fine, show me some credible evidence. If they cannot do so then I dismiss their claim. This is of variable effect of course. The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence would have to be. I would not require evidence if someone told me they had eaten a nice sandwich.

I don't care if the atheists or the theists dislike this or not. And there is nothing that can "protect you from wishful thinking and personal bias", as you're already showing your own.

I can't really see how my position is biased unless you're saying its biased against things without evidence.. which is fine by me.

By the way: You must know that you're not in the "null position" because you believe that the "others" are wrong. That's a very strong belief.

I don't necessarily believe others are wrong. You may very well be correct that you experienced a ghost. I have no evidence for or against that but I will assume that you didn't because if I assumed that ghosts are real without evidence then I would also have to assume that everything else i dismissed without evidence is real and I would rather not be a crazy person.

If someone cannot present evidence it does not mean their claim false (absence of evidence) but I will work on the assumption that it is. Otherwise I'm just guessing.

I'm curious: What "credible evidence" could YOU show if what happened to me happens to you?

I'm not saying you *have* to produce evidence, I'm simply saying that I wont believe you without it. That's also not to say that you are lying. I have no doubt that you experienced what you say you did but as discussed earlier, the human mind is weird and adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

If you take the alternative approach and decide that you believe everything by default until shown otherwise then you automatically live in a world with astrology, tarot cards, witches, elves (which are totally real) and goblins which is, of course, absurd.

"of course, absurd"... Why?

...because they're witches and goblins and shit..

[Noctambulo]

There's a major difference though. Believing in a specific set of supernatural "facts" without evidence is a completely different thing from dismissing a proposition due to absence of evidence.
You're basically saying that it is wrong to dismiss the existence of Santa Claus as long as there is a teeny-tiny bit of unexplained circumstance anywhere regarding the delivery of all the worlds presents.

That's not the same, and you know it (or should know it).

What I can say is there is a rational explanation about the presents under the tree: The parents are who buy the gifts. As a parent, I do that.

I'm sorry, that's textbook religious apologetics.

I'm sorry, that was a ATHEIST who said that

Absence of evidence IS INDEED evidence of absence, IF existence is expected to produce evidence.
If person A claims they own a cat and person B, standing in their house, can't see the cat anywhere, there's really not much that can be said or done. Unless of course there's also no cat food, no cat toys, no cat hair, no scratching post, no litter box and not any other sign of there ever living a cat in the house.
In that case, person B is entirely justified to dismiss person A's claim about owning a cat, UNTIL proven otherwise.

"Absence of evidence" is NOT "evidence of absence".

I don't have evidence that you're human. Maybe you're an IA, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis your existence UNTIL proven otherwise?

There is no evidence of a life outside of Earth, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis that UNTIL proven otherwise?

Etc, etc...

If you don't accept that, well, then there's really no way to move forward.

Exactly what I'm thinking about you

Just be clear that calling "hardcore" skeptics as irrational as fundamentalists will draw their ire simply because they didn't arrive at their position by not thinking.

Are you sure? I don't really see the diference.

By the way, a fundamentalist would be claiming that the people who don't share his belief are "not thinking."

Fundamentalists are the same, no matter if they are theists or atheists

[m0ds]

Well we know there are a number of other 'dimensions' out there, we have very little understanding of how they or ours interact with each other, I wouldn't totally discount the theory of ghosts or spooky phenomena. As far as I'm aware no-one knows what happens after death, either. Nor would I put everything at the hands of scientists either.

But, take countless reports of strange things and it certainly holds more weight than "none". A lot of them can be disproved, and I'm sure a lot of them came from times when it was hard to even have a working gas lamp - so I'm sure peoples minds played tricks on them. Nowadays "ghosts" don't really get any spotlight, whether they've just upped and left or if they never even happened originally I don't know. Nowadays ghost tales are "Micheal Jackson's shadow walks across teh room!" and Most Haunted UK "Did you feel that? It felt like someone breathed on my shoulder!". Shows like that have kind of killed my interest and beleif in ghosts, but not the paranormal on the whole.

I'm more into aliens myself, it's a much more interactive phenomena, whatever it is - aliens, ufo's, organic material - you can go out there find it and see it without having to be in someones house or spooky castle. But I can imagine that would be quite a thrill too. I went on a ghost walk and talk some photos and its funny because some of the things they mentioned did actually appear on the photos, and some other strange things too. And whenever I have dabbled in ghosts/paranormal in the past things do get a little spooky.

The deeper you choose to go down the rabbit hole, the more you will be presented with, whether you beleive in it or not. In years to come some of those who are skeptical now will experience something that will change their opinion, seeing is beleiving. Presuming your peers are lying or were just "tripping out" is also a very immature way to approach it IMO. Since I properly started researching I've found lots of answers and a whole new level of questions arose - if you get involved yourself you will make this progression from just being skeptical to actually being informed. You can't be a brain surgeon without practice, patience and research (and training etc) - the same applies to paranormal/alien phenomena.

A few weeks ago I actually tried to recall some spooky places I had been too, and Googled them, and couldn't beleive it when I read one of the basements I had been in that felt the most scary, was actually a well known haunted basement (I was never told this prior or knew this and it was years ago I visited). So whether the atmosphere just creates that on people or if it's true I've no idea, but it's never worth discounting completely

I also get confused by evidence and people's desire to have it. Get yourself some personal evidence, don't expect it to be found on the internet, etc. Go and immerse yourself in the world of paranormal etc and you might just be surprised at some of the things you find (and experience) - but no don't ever presume there will just be an "evidence" video on YouTube. I usually ignore skeptics who don't really look into it but feel they have something to say about it. It's like me presuming I can just go and talk about the Higgs Boson on the CERN website because "I've heard of it and have an opinion on it".

That said I don't care if people beleive in ghosts or not. I'm just saying there are answers/experiences out there that will over-rule any kind of "thought" you have on the subject. Some nice spooky stories here definitely

[Noctambulo]

Maybe it wasn't even the door, but a branch or something hitting the window - sound has a funny habit of appearing to come from the wrong direction.

There's no branch that could hit the window.  

Maybe it was something falling on the floor from another room.  It's a lot of maybes, I know.

Nope. That was the first thing I looked out for, both times.

Or maybe there actually is a person hiding in your house... in fact... he could be standing behind you right now..... RUN!!!!

Damn!! Now I'm afraid to turn back... And I'm too lazy to run xDD

[Anian]

Quite.
But also remember that: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

...I really don't think that is connected and even if it was, that'll only make it harder to prove supernatural occurences.

[Noctambulo]

It's not that I am ignoring anything. I just dont believe that for which I have no evidence. Thats pretty much as simply as I can put it. There's nothing dogmatic about it.

Your dogma is: If I have no evidence (or it's something I don't already believe in), it's false.

I don't know why, but 1492 and Christopher Columbus are coming to my mind right now...

I can't really see how my position is biased unless you're saying its biased against things without evidence.. which is fine by me.

I don't necessarily believe others are wrong. You may very well be correct that you experienced a ghost.

Can you please tell me where I said that a ghost was implied in my experience? No?

You simply assumed that me asking for an explanation was like I was calling the Ghostbusters

No wonder you "can't really see how your position is biased".

I have no evidence for or against that but I will assume that you didn't because if I assumed that ghosts are real without evidence then I would also have to assume that everything else i dismissed without evidence is real and I would rather not be a crazy person.

That's a sophism.

I'm not saying you *have* to produce evidence, I'm simply saying that I wont believe you without it. That's also not to say that you are lying. I have no doubt that you experienced what you say you did but as discussed earlier, the human mind is weird and adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

You're implying that if I don't produce evidence, is because I'm lying or delusional.

No, you're not biased at alla nor a fundamentalist 

...because they're witches and goblins and shit..

Cool 

[Calin Leafshade]

It's not that I am ignoring anything. I just dont believe that for which I have no evidence. Thats pretty much as simply as I can put it. There's nothing dogmatic about it.

Your dogma is: If I have no evidence (or it's something I don't already believe in), it's false.

Thats not strictly what I said. I merely said that I won't believe it without evidence. I didn't say it must be false if there is no evidence. That would indeed be absurd. I merely said that I wont entertain the idea without evidence. Same goes for pixies, goblins, witches and anything else with no evidence.

I can't really see how my position is biased unless you're saying its biased against things without evidence.. which is fine by me.

I don't necessarily believe others are wrong. You may very well be correct that you experienced a ghost.

Can you please tell me where I said that a ghost was implied in my experience? No?

You simply assumed that me asking for an explanation was like I was calling the Ghostbusters

No wonder you "can't really see how your position is biased".

If all youre saying is that "Something happened and I can't explain it" then fine.. in fact that is exactly my position.

I have no evidence for or against that but I will assume that you didn't because if I assumed that ghosts are real without evidence then I would also have to assume that everything else i dismissed without evidence is real and I would rather not be a crazy person.

That's a sophism.

Which fallacy exactly? Seems perfectly logical to me. I believe that factual statements are to be accepted based upon their evidence. If I accept one thing as true without evidence then all other things without evidence become fair game.

I'm not saying you *have* to produce evidence, I'm simply saying that I wont believe you without it. That's also not to say that you are lying. I have no doubt that you experienced what you say you did but as discussed earlier, the human mind is weird and adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

You're implying that if I don't produce evidence, is because I'm lying or delusional.

No, you're not biased at alla nor a fundamentalist 

All I really said was that I dont believe it should be attributed to the supernatural. Maybe you did hear a noise, maybe you didnt. It doesnt really matter.

[Bror_Jon]

Quite.
But also remember that: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

...I really don't think that is connected and even if it was, that'll only make it harder to prove supernatural occurences.

Was my point. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

[Noctambulo]

But if you consider the event dispassionately, you must see it's more likely that you were wrong in thinking you were alone. Or wrong about your ability to distinguish those sounds.

I'm don't mean to be patronising. I'm sure I could make the same mistake.

I consider the event dispassionately (as I said, I never felt afraid, but curious). I'm 100% sure I was alone. My house is not made by wood, but concrete. The pipes are PVC...

[ddq]

You arguey motherfuckers...

[Khris]

@Noctambulo:
You didn't get my Santa point and it doesn't matter who says something as long as it's sound.
My Santa point was that you're saying that if a phenomenon can't be explained 100% naturally, it's fine to accept supernatural explanations. I say that's obviously wrong.

"Absence of evidence" is NOT "evidence of absence".
I don't have evidence that you're human. Maybe you're an IA, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis your existence UNTIL proven otherwise?

You are confusing things (in every argument you make, btw).
Whether I exist or not is unrelated to me being an AI and not human.
That I a) am human and b) exist are ordinary claims. There's no need to provide evidence for them.
As soon as I claim that I am an AI or you claim that I don't exist, that's an extraordinary claim and thus requires evidence.
And you do have evidence that I am human because there's no other way I could post on an internet forum. The fact that we are "talking" is evidence of me being a human being. At some point in the future it probably isn't any longer, but right now, in reality, there's plenty of evidence that I am a human being reading your post and typing at my keyboard with my human fingers in order to reply to it.

The other thing is, if somebody you're arguing with claimed that a person you interacted with online isn't human, you'd immediately dismiss that claim. It's sad that you're pretending you didn't just to make a weak argument.

And just to be clear (since I have a feeling our discussion will soon turn out to be about semantics and definitions): I didn't say that "absence of evidence is definite proof of absence", I said it is EVIDENCE of absence. The cat might still be there and actually live there, but until that is demonstrated, Person B is justified in assuming that Person A is lying about owning a cat. It might still be true, and Person B might still be wrong, but Person B is justified. That's the point. However, person B also shouldn't insist that there's no cat (that would be dogmatic).

There is no evidence of a life outside of Earth, so, it's entirely justified to dissmis that UNTIL proven otherwise?

The funny thing is, until the time when people first suggested that the earth is actually a sphere, they were entirely justified in assuming that it is flat. That's the whole point of skepticism, it is fine to doubt a radical notion UNTIL it is demonstrated to be true, even if it eventually turns out to be true. But, as opposed to dogmatism and fundamentalism, at this point, a "true" skeptic will change their mind basically in an instant.

By the way, a fundamentalist would be claiming that the people who don't share his belief are "not thinking."
Fundamentalists are the same, no matter if they are theists or atheists

Absolutely not. The main difference, like I explained, is the willingness to change one's mind. If I saw credible evidence of the existence of ghosts, I'd start "believing" in them over night.
Fundamentalism means not to change one's belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (e.g. young earth creationism, flat earthism).

Due to that skepticism couldn't be further from fundamentalism even if it tried.
It's a tired old argument and you really aren't doing yourself any good by using it.

The skeptical position is intellectually superior by definition.

See, when it comes to unknowable claims ("there's a teapot orbiting jupiter", "there once was an intervening god but he left us"), you can only address them in either of two ways: either dismiss them all or believe them all. You can't differentiate between them because they are unknowable, at least at this time, and there's no criteria by which to sort them.
As is plainly obvious, believing them all is stupid because there's an infinite number of unknowable claims. So the only rational position is to dismiss each and every one of them (for the time being!).
This isn't a dogmatic belief system like fundamentalism, it's a simple logical conclusion about the state of reality.

And I'll say it again: dismissing a claim is not remotely the same as claiming the opposite. This is an important distinction and the inability to make it is exclusively found in believers.

[Stupot]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

[LRH]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

Allow me to fix that.

You see, I have this sort of erm..."condition" in which I sometimes wake up in a sort of half-asleep state. I'll often times hallucinate when this happens. Sometimes I have an entire conversation with someone that isn't there. However, here are some of the more creepy instances of the pseudo-awake-dreams:

I was probably about 7. There was a thunderstorm raging outside. The storm had this amazing foreboding aura, and yet I couldn't help but look out the window. Suddenly, after a flash of lightning, a hideous corpse was pressed up against the window, shrieking at me.

Another time, more recently, actually, I was sleeping and woke up to the sound of someone yelling angrily. I desperately tried to remember what they had said. I knew it was a short yell, like "HEY!" or "YOU!" Normally if I were to hear something like this in the middle of the night, I would leap out of bed and search the place. However, I felt like for some reason, I couldn't move. In the hallway, a carbon monoxide meter constantly casts out a green "everything's okay" light unless there is too much carbon monoxide. I looked carefully into the light, then suddenly saw a human shadow pass through it, although I saw nobody in the hall. I actually screamed. :x

I "woke up" in both of these situations to see nothing, but they're certainly scary when they feel real and I don't realize they're merely hallucinations.

These dreams have definitely not affected my AGS experience whatsoever.

[Noctambulo]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

Sorry about that...

[Stupot]

You arguey motherfuckers...

Yeah, I missed it when we were exchanging ghostly experiences

Sorry about that...

No need to apologize.  I was just being facetious.  Carry on