What are poltergeists?

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brokenbutnotbeat said:
well, i don't agree, many people see ghosts,
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I disagree with that statement because there is no evidence that anyone has ever seen a ghost.

I am one of those annoying people that requires evidence to believe something.:wink:
 
I am one of those annoying people that requires evidence to believe something.:wink:
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I doubt that. Most our daily believing has to do with taking the news anchor's word for it, or an advertisement's, or a factoid we read on the internet, without any evidence at all. Our daily conversations hinge on us acknowledging the reality of people's claims over what they experience without demanding evidence. And how many times do we make judgments based on mere intuition without any evidence? Quite often actually. Belief relies on many more things than just evidence.
 
Magical Realist said:
I doubt that. Most our daily believing has to do with taking the news anchor's word for it, or an advertisement's, or a factoid we read on the internet, without any evidence at all. Our daily conversations hinge on us acknowledging the reality of people's claims over what they experience without demanding evidence. And how many times do we make judgments based on mere intuition without any evidence? Quite often actually. Belief relies on many more things than just evidence.
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OK, I will be more specific. To believe your absurd junk about ghosts I would need very compelling evidence.
 
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What are poltergeists?

In my opinion most likely they are are modern folktales.

But the Fortean in me acknowledges that there might conceivably be some unknown anomalous physical phenomenon at work in some of these cases. I'm rather doubtful about that, but can't rule it out entirely.

If that's what's happening, then I don't know what poltergeists are.
 
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Yazata said:
What are poltergeists?

In my opinion most likely they are are modern folktales.

But the Fortean in me acknowledges that there might conceivably be some unknown anomalous physical phenomenon at work in some of these cases. I'm rather doubtful about that, but can't rule it out entirely.

If that's what's happening, then I don't know what poltergeists are.
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What impresses me about poltergeist phenomena is the uniformity of all their many accounts. Hundreds of accounts of this phenomenon, and all seem to share common traits. Objects materializing out of thin air (teleportation) and being thrown. Rain from the ceiling. Stones from a nearby location being thrown or rained down. The leakage of red bloodlike liquids. Threatening words scrawled on walls and floors. Moving furniture. Failed exorcism attempts. The presence of a young woman or girl in the house. And no one ever getting seriously hurt. It's the same basic pattern. The activity starts mysteriously, and then at some point ends mysteriously. Very strange. Here's an account that occurred in 1998:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-bullets-rooms-attempts-exorcise-FAILED.html
 
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Oh well it's in the Daily Mail so it must be unbiased and true.

Next I expect you'll be linking to a story from Fox News about how Obama is secretly a gay Jew?
 
paddoboy said:
The hard part is sorting out the wheat from the chaff, hence the scientific method and peer review.
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No..the "scientific method" and "peer review" are not going to magically find out what happened in a case that happened 17 years ago. So we rely on the eyewitness accounts of those there when it was going on, of which there were several.
 
Magical Realist said:
No..the "scientific method" and "peer review" are not going to magically find out what happened in a case that happened 17 years ago. So we rely on the eyewitness accounts of those there when it was going on, of which there were several.
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Poltergeists are nothing more then a figment of some people's imagination.
They don't exist.
If you want to show I'm wrong then you need to reproduce the same ghost, goblin, poltergeist on demand.
 
Poltergeists are nothing more then a figment of some people's imagination.
They don't exist.
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Hundreds of documented accounts say otherwise.

If you want to show I'm wrong then you need to reproduce the same ghost, goblin, poltergeist on demand.
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No I don't. Just like I don't have to reproduce earthquake lightning, or a tornado, or an eclipse, or a black hole, to know that THEY happen.
 
Well at least those things can be explained as to how they happen.

What's your explanation as to how the physical mechanics of poltergeist activity works? What kind of work is taking place and how is the kinetic energy transferred, and from where?
 
Daecon said:
Well at least those things can be explained as to how they happen.

What's your explanation as to how the physical mechanics of poltergeist activity works? What kind of work is taking place and how is the kinetic energy transferred, and from where?
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Who knows? But then we don't know how quantum entanglement works, or what caused the Big Bang, or what causes consciousness to exist. Reality is full of mysteries.
 
Magical Realist said:
Who knows? But then we don't know how quantum entanglement works, or what caused the Big Bang, or what causes consciousness to exist. Reality is full of mysteries.
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The difference is we have theories that adhere to the known/expected laws of physics for those items, where as for ghosts and other such pseudo claims they try to buck the current bodies of knowledge
 
Kittamaru said:
The difference is we have theories that adhere to the known/expected laws of physics for those items, where as for ghosts and other such pseudo claims they try to buck the current bodies of knowledge
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No..we don't know enough about consciousness, quantum entanglement, or the big bang to be able to say it won't buck current knowledge. For all we know whole theories may be invalidated by these phenomena. But we don't deny the phenomena exist just because we can't explain it. Same with the
paranormal.
 
Magical Realist said:
No..we don't know enough about consciousness, quantum entanglement, or the big bang to be able to say it won't buck current knowledge. For all we know whole theories may be invalidated by these phenomena. But we don't deny the phenomena exist just because we can't explain it. Same with the
paranormal.
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It seems you have a lot of reading to do if you honestly believe what you just said...
 
Magical Realist said:
Hundreds of documented accounts say otherwise.
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Only to the gullible. All the official accounts do is highlight something that as yet is unexplained.


Magical Realist said:
No I don't. Just like I don't have to reproduce earthquake lightning, or a tornado, or an eclipse, or a black hole, to know that THEY happen.
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Pure unadulterated rubbish. We know why Earthquakes occur...they are explained scientifically . We know why lightning happens....It is explained scientifically. We know why eclipses happen...They are scientifically explained. We are pretty sure BHs exist.....By the application of already known physics.

Now no matter how much you want to dance around those facts, and no matter how much you will most likely misinterpret the scientific data, and no matter how much you chose to ignore the obvious, none of the examples you are fond of quoting give anything concrete about "supernatural happenings"
 
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