How to prove spiritual orbs in photos?

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by wegs, Jul 23, 2013.

  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Not to mention the fact that any reputable scientist who ever dared to conduct such an investigation, would no doubt be ridiculed and discredited so harshly he'd never work again. "Hey, you're the guy that went looking for ghosts aren't you? Sorry, not hiring right now." The big institutionalized system of science has surefire ways of automatically protecting itself from subversive research and heretical ideas. It's called "peer support." So if you want to work in real science you'd better go along with the crowd and not rock the boat with anything.
     
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  3. river

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    Just...just ....just dam

    We need to know we really do
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The scientist who found genuine reliable evidence of ghosts would revolutionize our understanding of the world and get rich on talk shows.
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    You mean surround themselves with goobers who rigged an old house to make sounds?
     
  8. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Oh really? You think the houses on these shows are rigged, spidergoat??

    :roflmao:
     
  9. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    As Immanuel Kant unfortunately, originally submitted in a diffuse and overly verbose manner: Immaterial affairs would be converted into part of the casual chain and relational network of phenomena in the empirical world [that is, things / influences as systemically represented in consciousness, or in a mind-outputted reality]. There would always be either natural explanations [eventually] found for unusual circumstances -- or the latter would simply remain ambiguous / unresolved (lending itself to clean-up by skeptics as much as anyone). IOW, trying to prove this or that event was of "supernatural" origin would be a futile / constant uphill journey.

    A crude analogy might be some future era of computer games, where any sounds and actions by an external player would be translated into the scheme / background "story" / logic of the applicable game-world itself. [If that is not already bordering on being the case.] For instance, a participant calling herself "Hawk Mistress" gets distracted from the virtual competition on the screen as her pet dog enters the room barking. The noise and the animal's motions get picked-up by the extremely responsive sensors of the equipment. Suddenly the usually passive golden dragon that likes to bask in the sun behind Velkhall Castle becomes agitated, flies about making trumpeting noises that have a specific meaning to its species. Back in our world, Hawk Mistress yells back at the dog "Be quiet! Hush, stop, etc" -- and even these arbitrary audio influences the program must convert into content that makes "sense" in the context of the game world structure. Which her onscreen avatar utters: "Stable boy, saddle my horse. I must be off to the Nordshire to see what shananigans are afoot with the Hisk folk!"

    Of course, if there happened to be any decent "research" characters around in such exorbitant virtual realities, an investigation would always track down causes that were "internal" to the network of interrelated phenomena residing in it, and to the instructions or governing system underlying it (the natural "laws" regulating that domain of exhibited spatiotemporal / material entities). Never to something from a "transcendent" or an "extra-game" realm that could be exposed as the source, whether players or computers (again, the former influences would be automatically converted / integrated into that world's own "story" of how it functioned, when not deliberately overridden).

    But these "simulation philosophies" of today, feeding-off the invention of computers, simply set-up an infinite regress of similar worlds within similar worlds. An older philosopher like Kant avoided such by making "causality" (time-organized changes) into one of the global principles or conditions that conscious experience conformed to, rather than a concept belonging to an existence truly independent of perception and thought / understanding. Thus, the stereotypical "Matrix" junk above -- and of the last couple of decades -- is purely intended as a quick, flawed or naive* metaphor for how some past philosophers tried to make a natural world and an intelligible world compatible with each other.

    [*] I.E., contemporary speculative thinker: "A matryoshka doll scenario [apparently] doesn't even concern or bother us anymore (realities endlessly nested within realities)."
     
  10. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    CC, extremely insightful read, thank you. I particularly felt the last paragraph speaks directly to the point of this thread. I asked if there are ways to "prove" spiritual orbs in photos.
    (Oh my, pardon my horrible grammar error..."is there other..." Lol)

    Listen to this for a minute, though. Please take a moment a read the thread in the physics section titled "Time Reborn."

    Basically, the theory is that if laws are outside of time, then science can't "check" them.
    Lee Smolin contends that the laws of physics aren't fixed, but rather evolving.

    Hmmmm....

    Where am I going with this, do you think?

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  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Duh, the whole thing is a scam.
     
  12. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    "Orbs who believe in humans are superstitious and woo woo!
    They believe despite the evidence, not because of it"
    Richard Orbkins, DScO, FRSO
    (Author of "The Selfish Orb" and "The Human Delusion")
     
  13. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Ok, as stated previously I'm going to try to keep this shorter than just responding to every comment. If you think in doing so I have missed a salient point, then forgive me as that was not my intention.
    The evidence does not point to it being real. It at best points to it being of unknown cause.
    Unfortunately you already assume the existence of the paranormal, and so you fit the evidence to that assumption.
    With the obvious difference that a doctor can actually test their inferences scientifically, and can show their inferences to be correct through actually curing the patient of their ailment. No such testing, or validation for the paranormal.
    How has it taken you this long to realise this?
    Yes, this is what I am saying: that at best we can say the cause is unknown, until such time as a valid scientific hypothesis is put to the test. Until the we can use Occam's razor to rationally conclude on a cause (accepting that it is just a rational opinion rather than necessarily being the truth). And no, the paranormal would not satisfy the razor.
    I am not saying they are necessarily unreliable, only that it is relatively easy to convince even an entire audience that mysterious things can happen. Just look at magicians on stage.
    You need to learn what an ad hominems attack is. Calling someone lazy instead of countering an argument would be an ad hom.
    Calling someone lazy in the manner they have conducted their science is a justified observation and a legitimate part of the argument. It is therefore not an ad hominem.
    Understand?
    It is merely your assumption that I would not accept any evidence. Set up a falsifiable hypothesis that can only conclude with a paranormal explanation and test it under controlled conditions. That would be strong evidence. Has anyone ever done that? Care to share?
    You also need to understand when something is provided as an example for a specific point, and so not argue the irrelevant aspects of the example.
    Again, it is not necessarily the observations, the accumulated evidence that is in issue. It is the interpretation and conclusion as paranormal.
    Yes. Very much so.
    They had a plethora of technical equipment to record temperatures, emf readings etc (static and portable).
    And yes, we were wandering around in the early hours.
    The investigators fell into two camps: those who tried to convince people of their own interpretations, especially when some began to suffer from the state of increased vigilance; and those that just got on with their own work. Some saw the paranormal in everything, and some saw "interesting readings".
    If all you're doing is looking for phenomena that fit a pattern, that is great. Go for it.
    The issue is, as I have explained, not the observations but the interpretation as paranormal.
    Then where is the evidence? How do we know what beings from another dimension would be like? Which dimension? Why is it a being from another dimension and not invisible aliens farting?
    Where have I said you aren't rational enough?
    You are scientifically lazy, that much is clear from your posting of supposed evidence.
    And since when is a question seeking to understand a person an accusation of being a "weak coward"?
    Please stop jumping to such assumptions.
    Provide a falsifiable theory, test it in a controlled manner and the results would be rather strong evidence. Why do you seem unwilling to provide it?
    And no evidence is NOT evidence of absence, unless one would expect to find evidence. Hence the need for a falsifiable theory.
    You may want to raise your objections to scriptures as anecdotal evidence in the religion forum. But yes, it is anecdotal evidence. How strong or weak you consider it is another matter.
    Which is why I said to quote me where I have done that. Since the only "doing" here is me typing words, if you say I am doing it then it must be apparent in the words I type. So please quote me where I have done it.
    By way of analogy: I accept the existence of god is possible. But I don't think god is knowable. And I don't believe in the existence of god.
    Do you understand?
    Science is not infallible. Have I stated I think it is? Please quote me if I have, otherwise stop making stuff up.
    It already covers both. One supported by the other. Nothing would change here.
    The universe is already filled with more mystery than I am aware of. Just piling more on to that would therefore be of little consequence, even if it did bring some of it closer to home, so to speak. And I just need to look up at the night sky to feel the profundity of it all.
    It might, and yes I could. Quite easily, thanks.
    Is there a point to all this questioning?
    Ah, the burden of proof...
    Not "can't exist", but that until someone provides convincing evidence then there is simply no reason to believe it does, when "unknown mundane" sufficiently describeswhat I see as the rational conclusion.

    Wow, and this was the condensed version. :/
    Me bad.
     
  14. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    This speaks volumes for your mindset.
    Your evidence: a television programme that needs to provide shocks, scares, spookiness in order to stay on air.
    Your conclusion: everything in the programme should be taken at face value and as described by the hosts, and as such you see it as evidence for the paranormal.

    Is it not more rational to assume that events are possibly staged, or ambiguous at best, and fraudulent at worst, especially given some of the debunking of that show?

    You have now lost the last of any respect I may have had for your position.
     
  15. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    And you genuinely believe that thwack sound could only have been made by the coatrack hurtling through the air, past the guys head, and hitting the floor? Rather than, say, the guy knocking into it and then quickly improvising some scare?
    You're that gullible?

    With regard the birdcage, you think it more likely that a paranormal force pushed it over than, say, someone pulling it with string or some other mundane mechanism, even just if balancing it precariously on the edge of the table in the hope it might fall over? And given that you can not see the whole birdcage you can rule out the "string theory?" (Pun intended),

    Wow.
    Just... wow.
    You are their dream audience.
    Do you also believe all the marketing hype you see on adverts?
     
  16. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    To the skeptics;

    Where is your sense of wonder?
    Do you believe in anything that has no "proof?"

    A belief isn't in something that can be proven.
    2+2=4 all day long.
    It is a fact, not a belief.
    Unless you're an abstract theorist, that equation is fact.
    People don't say...I believe that 2+2=4.
    It just is.
    A belief might be something you have some certainty with but you can't prove it.
    And to say that people who believe anecdotal evidence are gullible, is a distraction from the dialogue here.
    Just saying.

    No offense meant, but to go through life with no wonderment....
    Seems like it would be dull. :/
     
  17. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    "Human"
    A nebulous creature which appears in photographs, especially those of graveyards at night.
    Being long and thin, they are also known as "stretchies".
    (Orbford English Dictionary)

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    A Human. Photo by Annie Orbovitz.
    Note the hands to the face, as if the human was taking a photograph.


    (Sceptic or not. If I saw that in a graveyard I would be off, quickly!)
     
  18. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, wegs, I thought you knew better.

    Firstly, being skeptical is not synonymous with lacking wonder.
    One merely needs to look up into the night sky to have wonder at the universe, and our place in it, for example.
    One only needs to read about quantum mechanics to have awe at the complexity and apparent absurdity of the physical at that level.
    There is wonderment in art, in people, in nature.
    Being skeptical does not remove you from this. Why on earth would you think it would?

    And as a skeptic I tend to avoid belief in something for which there just is no compelling evidence.
    If there is compelling evidence then I may hold the belief, at least practically speaking, until such time as evidence arises to convince me the other way.
    I'm sure it would be. But your fallacy here is equating skepticism with a lack of wonderment. Really not sure why you would do that?
     
  19. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Lol, ditto

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  20. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    You know what is weird? I knew you were going to say this. Lol
    Well, not verbatim.

    I don't equate skepticism with a lack of wonderment.
    But, you dismiss the potential for orbs rather quickly as if it is utter nonsense.

    It is also a "fallacy" to assume gullibility on the part of someone who believes in the possibility of the paranormal.

    I was hopeful that someone would address my question above about relating this to the theory proposed in the thread I suggested you all read. Suppose the laws of physics are not fixed? How do we "test" things that are outside time and space? (ie: "like" the paranormal)

    I'm interested to hear your thoughts to that end.
     
  21. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    You imply as much through addressing your question only to skeptics.
    If you were shown footage of something for which there had never been any scientific validation, and was told it was caused by: 1, god farting; 2, the remnant effects of an alien transportation device; 3, the paranormal; or 4, something as yet unknown, which of those 4 would you opt for?
    Why?
    It is, which is why I make no such assumption.
    Any assumption of gullibility is based on the assessment of their posts.
    We couldn't. Nor could we test anything at all with any reliability. Testing requires a comparative... Something to test against. We can not have such a comparative if the laws of physics are variable, as any deviations from expectation can be hand-waved away with a mere "ah, the laws changed". I.e. everything becomes unscientific due to an inability to falsify.
     
  22. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    I guess that is true.

    Depends what the "something is" that I'm viewing. Choice 4, but only because I have no reference point for this question.

    But a judgement of one's reasoning ability, nonetheless.

    Please google "Lee Smolin." Please read his new theory that has yet to be tested with success.
    I suspect, it will be met with such continuous scrutiny from "traditional" scientists, that no one will buy into it.
    But...for the sake of this discussion, what he proposes is that the laws of physics are evolving and not fixed.
    So...when you have read about it, please let me know your thoughts.
     
  23. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Rather than laws necessarily changing over time in our universe, though, Smolin seems to be jumping on the bandwagon of various versions of the multiverse idea -- that this isn't the only cosmos; and that as universes are born over time, their laws evolve and and become diverse, distinct from each other (many of them being incapable of permitting life to arise). Paul Davies expressed a similar view [below] against Platonic-like, immutable laws -- but set aside the belief that a "multiverse" really provided an adequate explanation for their genesis / variation or wholly resolved the supposed problem.

    Taking Science On Faith

    ...Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are — they just are.” The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational. After all, the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality — the laws of physics — only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science.

    Can the mighty edifice of physical order we perceive in the world about us ultimately be rooted in reasonless absurdity? If so, then nature is a fiendishly clever bit of trickery: meaninglessness and absurdity somehow masquerading as ingenious order and rationality. [...] the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.
    [...]
    A second reason that the laws of physics have now been brought within the scope of scientific inquiry is the realization that what we long regarded as absolute and universal laws might not be truly fundamental at all, but more like local bylaws. They could vary from place to place on a mega-cosmic scale. [...] The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn’t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.
    [...]
    It seems to me there is no hope of ever explaining why the physical universe is as it is so long as we are fixated on immutable laws or meta-laws that exist reasonlessly or are imposed by divine providence. The alternative is to regard the laws of physics and the universe they govern as part and parcel of a unitary system, and to be incorporated together within a common explanatory scheme.

    In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.

    Further reference: We Will Never Explain The Cosmos By Taking On Faith Either Divinity Or Physical Laws


    The reaction to Davies' comments from the physics community (but possibly in the context of it misinterpreting him):

    Laws of Nature, Source Unknown

    . . . Reached by e-mail, Dr. Davies acknowledged that his mailbox was “overflowing with vitriol,” but said he had been misunderstood. What he had wanted to challenge, he said, was not the existence of laws, but the conventional thinking about their source. There is in fact a kind of chicken-and-egg problem with the universe and its laws. Which “came” first — the laws or the universe? If the laws of physics are to have any sticking power at all, to be real laws, one could argue, they have to be good anywhere and at any time, including the Big Bang, the putative Creation. Which gives them a kind of transcendent status outside of space and time. On the other hand, many thinkers — all the way back to Augustine — suspect that space and time, being attributes of this existence, came into being along with the universe — in the Big Bang, in modern vernacular. So why not the laws themselves?

    Dr. Davies complains that the traditional view of transcendent laws is just 17th-century monotheism without God. “Then God got killed off and the laws just free-floated in a conceptual vacuum but retained their theological properties,” he said in his e-mail message. But the idea of rationality in the cosmos has long existed without monotheism. As far back as the fifth century B.C. the Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras and his followers proclaimed that nature was numbers. Plato envisioned a higher realm of ideal forms, of perfect chairs, circles or galaxies, of which the phenomena of the sensible world were just flawed reflections. Plato set a transcendent tone that has been popular, especially with mathematicians and theoretical physicists, ever since.
    [...]
    Steven Weinstein, a philosopher of science at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, termed the phrase “law of nature” as “a kind of honorific” bestowed on principles that seem suitably general, useful and deep. How general and deep the laws really are, he said, is partly up to nature and partly up to us, since we are the ones who have to use them. But perhaps, as Dr. Davies complains, Plato is really dead and there are no timeless laws or truths. A handful of poet-physicists harkening for more contingent nonabsolutist laws not engraved in stone have tried to come up with prescriptions for what John Wheeler, a physicist from Princeton and the University of Texas in Austin, called “law without law.”

    As one example, Lee Smolin, a physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, has invented a theory in which the laws of nature change with time. It envisions universes nested like Russian dolls inside black holes, which are spawned with slightly different characteristics each time around. But his theory lacks a meta law that would prescribe how and why the laws change from generation to generation. . .
     

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